Multi-Generational Dancers Stay in Step : Maine: Dancers range in age from 8 to 78, and in occupation from store clerk to executive. But the diversity draws them together.

The last time Elizabeth Shames went to dance class she was in New York City, and it was 1935.

Now, more than half a century later, after a career as a textile designer and weaver, two marriages, three children and four grandchildren, she’s back in a Portland dance studio taking classes, rehearsing and performing with 50 others in an unconventional, “multi-generational” dance company named Perennial Effects.

They don’t do ballroom or ballet, but a free-form style of modern dance. The dancers--ranging from 8 to 78--have jobs, go to school, collect pension checks. There are retirees, schoolchildren, a grocery store clerk and an executive.

“It is intimidating to see this wide range of both boys and girls and men and women. My feeling was they would look at me and say, ‘What’s that little old lady doing here?’ ” said Shames, a great-grandmother in her 70s.

Instead, the diversity draws dancers together. Once people start going to class and performing, they rarely drop out, said Betsy Dunphy, the group’s founder and director.

“It doesn’t feel like a dance rehearsal. It’s sort of like a family reunion,” said Emily Ainsworth, 11, who is in sixth grade.

The group puts on about six public performances a year, including one at the Maine Arts Festival. Once a year they put on a show of their own; this year, they’re taking their act to schools.

There are similar groups all over the United States, said Liz Lerman, a Washington, D.C., choreographer who lectures about incorporating all ages in dance.

She lists multi-generational dance groups in such places as Portsmouth, N.H.; Portland, Ore., and New York City. In Burlington, Vt., one dance group calls itself “Cradle to Grave.”

“I think that it’s good for young people to see that grandmas can dance,” said Priscilla Green, who is “over 65” and works as a volunteer coordinator at the Southern Maine Agency on Aging.

“Their bodies may not be the greatest, but they have creative ideas. It’s good for middle ages to know that just because you’re over 65 that’s not the end of the world,” she said. “It’s still exciting,”

The dancers poke fun at shopping with a piece called “Paper or Plastic.”

“The Picnic” lampoons high society.

“Fire in the Melting Pot” is about the Los Angeles riots. Dunphy said it is intended to show the audience how easy television made it for the nation to distance itself from the tragedy. Dancers pretend to fight while others watch through mock TV screens made by forming squares with their fingers.

Kate Bohrson, 35, who danced professionally before marriage and children, thinks performances attract crowds for an uncommon reason.

“There’s a lot of resonance with the audience; they can relate to it because basically they could be up there with us,” she said.

After performing all summer and taking the month of September off, preparation for the company’s fourth season has begun.

Their dance studio at Ram Island Dance in downtown Portland looks like any other--mirrors on the walls, stereo in the corner, plain wood floors--but dress is casual.

Dance shoes and leotards aren’t required. One elderly woman wears loose, flowered pants and glasses; another dons psychedelic stretch pants; a middle-aged man comes in sweats.

The modern dance method evolved from ballet and still uses such classical moves as pointed toes and knee bends called plies. Any kind of music goes--from Brazilian to Scottish fiddle to folk, the Four Tops, James Taylor, country Western, swing and jazz.

Dancers come up with ideas for choreography; Dunphy does the fine tuning.

“Sometimes they’re fun and funny and goofy . . . then there are ones that are really personal . . . some are heartbreaking,” Dunphy said.

At a recent morning class, warm-ups were followed by improvisation. Dunphy asked dancers to make a “life map.” Each person pretended the dance floor was a map and did a dance that told part of their life story.

Shames made a path from Manhattan to Maine. On the way, she stopped to cradle her arms as if holding a child. More than once, she held her head in her hands as if weeping.

Dancers say they stick with the group because they like the creativity, the exercise, the camaraderie and the chance to perform.

“It’s a little bit like permission to be a kid in this adult serious world I work and live in,” said John Leddy, 53. Leddy, who works at a social service agency, began dancing at age 50.