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A cheeky extra blog from Hannah :)

On Tuesday 30th August, I was invited by Sarah to go with Amy and Tom to the residential home in Lofthouse and show them a few of our dances. These included the Foxtrot, Waltz and the residents’ favourite, the Jive. Nervous and excited, we headed to Lofthouse and were greeted by the very welcoming carers and an especially enthusiastic lady who was staying at the home. She even got a turn at dancing the foxtrot with our very own Tom who did really well leading her through the basic steps. Even more residents were seemingly impressed with Tom suggesting we have a raffle for him…Maybe next time ladies.
We performed the dances twice, once indoors for one half of the care home and once in the garden for the other half. It allowed us to chat to some of the residents about their dancing days, remembering where they used to dance as young people and what they enjoyed most. One keen lady spoke about how she used to be a ballet dancer and connected with Amy, who also has a love for ballet, recalling the dance school she attended and strict teachers.
The highlight for me was talking to all the residents about dance, their experiences of going every week socially. One lady I chatted to, talked about how she loved the waltz and rock and roll, the two go hand in hand, right? She was very lovely, giving us some sound advice to stay fit and keep the dancing up, even getting to her feet and dancing when we started the jive. It was great to see them enjoying themselves, and made it all worthwhile even if it was just for a couple of hours. Hopefully this will prompt more conversations between residents about what they liked/didn’t like about our dancing as well as reminisce about their own.

Thank you to the carers at Lofthouse for welcoming us so brilliantly and the residents for their kind words. I would happily visit again!

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