A senior dance team called "The Pacemakers" formed after its founder was cyberbullied. The squad's mission: dispel stereotypes of getting old.
Courtesy of Susan Avery
An 84-year-old who does the splits, a 62-year-old who spins on her head and a 69-year-old with a heart condition who does cartwheels.
The limber trio performs in a seniors' dance troupe where many of the members are old enough to claim social security.
Susan Avery is the brains behind "The Pacemakers," the New York City-based troupe that defies convention by showing that age is just a number.
"Our mission is to prove that 'old' is not a curse word," she told Insider. The 63-year-old added, "We believe that getting old is a badge of honor, and we shout it from the rooftops."
Avery, whose nickname in the troupe is "Chief Heart Murmur," established the group in 2019. She said that it performs around two gigs every month, which usually leads to a standing ovation.
"People love us," she said. "We bring joy to our audience," she said of the 31-member team who have appeared at movie premieres, conferences, and minor league baseball games.
The members' specialty is jazz and break dancing to tracks like "None of your Business" by Salt-n-Pepa — all the time wearing the year of their birth on the back of their jerseys.
"We have 1939 and upwards," Avery said, referring to the years members were born in. "We're made up of nurses, teachers, therapists, even a professional boxing coach." She went on, "There's not a person on the team who doesn't have some malady. We have dancers who've had knee and hip replacements, pulmonary edema, and arthritis."
She said that seniors need to move because health problems can start if they don't. "You don't have to be able to climb Mount Everest or be an Olympic athlete to be a healthy senior," she added.
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Avery founded "The Pacemakers" in January 2019 after, she said, being "cyber-bullied for being too old to perform in public." She said it was the result of "some pictures" that appeared when she was part of a younger group of dancers.
"I was devastated," she told Insider. "At that point, I figured my dancing days were over."
But she got the idea of establishing a troupe from her daughter. "I was licking my wounds at dinner, and she said, 'Why don't you start your own old person team?'" she said.
At first, she thought it was too much of an undertaking. But a friend helped her put an advert in Playbill, a monthly magazine for theatergoers, giving details of a seniors' audition.
"I had no clue whether people would show up, but we were thrilled," Avery said. "We just wanted to know if they had rhythm and a strong desire to perform. Everything else we could make work.'"
She said there were people at the audition who were "100% against having their ages on their costumes." She said that "under no circumstances" did they want their ages out there.
Avery told Insider that she "respected" what they had to say but invited them to "flourish elsewhere" because the group didn't believe in "age shaming."
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Barbara Adler was certainly comfortable with displaying the year of her birth — 1961 — on the back of her uniform.
"Everyone on the team shares a deep desire to be proud of ourselves, our accomplishments, our abilities, and our ages," the performer said. "We want to be seen and feel proud and wanted."
She told Insider that she "didn't pretend to look like Janet Jackson's backup dancer." She said that she wanted to showcase the "unexpected" and dance "to the realm of my own possibility."
The 63-year-old, who is now the group's captain, went on, "Everybody's agility and ability is different. It's a really big spectrum.
"You can have some people who can do the splits at the age of 75 and some people who can't bend down. Our focus is the joy of what you can do," Adler said.
Meanwhile, Avery said there was a "lot of laughter" during rehearsals, which take place every Saturday morning in Manhattan, and the performances.
"There's a lot of jokesters on the team," she noted.
