Seniors welcome the holiday season with a Germantown tap-dance show

Dozens of fans filled the Center In the Park auditorium Thursday afternoon for the 20th annual holiday concert event featuring performances from seniors enrolled in tap-dance classes offered there.

Donning red shirts and black pants, the seniors showed off five routines they learned from instructor Tweety Klevence. The performers, ranging in age from 69 to 87 years old, were Helen Clavon, Carlotta Faveria, Marion Fuqua, Martha Lambert, Eleanor Lenz, Hazel Norris and Mary Pinder.

“It’s a way for seniors to enjoy themselves and do something they think they don’t know how to do,” said Klevence of tap performances that occur each winter and spring at the Vernon Park center.

By mid-performance, the crowd outnumbered available chairs, so more were brought into the auditorium. Explained program director Brannon Johnson, “This is a much larger crowd than I expected. … Every year this is an awesome event. I am so glad to see the seniors happy and enjoying themselves.”

While the dancers performed, Klevence asked audience members to join in but just a few weren’t too bashful to do so. Those who rose to their dancing feet blended right in.

“This was a fabulous event,” Lambert said after their last performance. “We are the jazzy young divas.”