Toronto, July 6, 2025
We still want to rock!
Do boomers boogie?
The opening sentences of a recent article in the New York Times caught my attention. “It was well past midnight on a recent weekend, and the Mirano nightclub in central Brussels pulsed with its usual energy. A D.J. played bass-heavy music with a West African lilt, people downed shots at the bar and red lights beamed across a crowded dance floor. Among the revelers in crop tops, short skirts and high heels, one group stood out: gray-haired retirement-home residents, many in their 80s or 90s. The men wore suits with pocket handkerchiefs, and the women, in mascara and red lipstick, wore chunky necklaces and tops with sequins.”
The Mirano rave for the elderly was organized by Papy Booom, a Belgian nonprofit that addresses loneliness among older people and tries to prevent a “fading of spirit.” (“Papy Booom” is a play on the French expression “papy-boom” which refers to the demographic shift produced by the large number of baby boomers.) “There’s no real age limit for knowing how to party,” said the nightclub’s manager. But, reported the Times, some realities of old age had to be taken into account at the Mirano event. “Hearing aids had to be removed because of the loud bass. Some residents used canes or were recovering from broken hips. Trips to the bathroom, down a dark staircase, required assistance from members of the security staff... In a low point of the night, one member of the group briefly lost consciousness after drinking too much.”
It's not just decadent Europe that has events like this. In a 2023 article the Times reported from Ann Arbor, Michigan: “Every Friday night from September to May, at an off-campus nightclub in this thriving college town, a group of die-hard music fans gathers to dance to some of the most devoted live bands in southeast Michigan. There are women in skintight red dresses, long-haired men sucking down bottles of beer and couples flirting in the alcove outside the bathrooms. In fact, just one thing distinguishes the crowd from nearly any other rock ’n’ roll show in a small city in America: Almost everyone is over 65.”
The Ann Arbor parties are organized by 72-year-old Randy Tessier, who says “There’s a lot of us and we still want to rock.” Not surprisingly, the Ann Arbor scene is more subdued than Belgium’s. The Times article does not mention anyone losing consciousness from drinking too much, and notes that shows finish at nine o’clock so everyone can go home and go to bed. “The only downsides,” said a bartender, “are that they lose stuff a lot and have, on a few occasions, needed an ambulance.”
It's no secret that dancing is good for old people. Doctors say that learning and remembering dance steps help delay cognitive decline; that dancing helps prevent falls by improving core strength and stability; that gentle forms of dancing, like ballroom or folk (or something called Zumba Gold—not a type of marijuana, but a dance program blending salsa, reggaeton, merengue, flamenco, cumbia, hip hop, and samba), can reduce chronic pain, especially from arthritis; and that dancing is highly beneficial for people with Parkinson’s disease.
And so, we old people dance. Why? Why do we remove our hearing aids, grab our walking sticks, put on a suit with a pocket handkerchief, slither into a skintight red dress, and dance the night away (or at least until nine o’clock) to the beat of Zumba Gold? Is it just another kind of physiotherapy? Are we following doctor’s orders? I don’t think so. It’s the dreamer, the romantic, the animal, in us. That’s why we do it.
*****
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I want to die dancing!
My favourite Steve Band song is Dance Dance Dance. It starts “ My grandpa he’s 95. He keeps on dancing he’s still alive. My grandma shes 92. She loves to dance and sing some too. I don’t know but I’ve been told if you keep on dancing you’ll never grow old.
Come on darlin put a pretty dress on. We’re gonna go out tonight… etc