It’s created by the German Ilse Tutt, a choreographer and social psychopedagogue, in the early 70’s, with the aim of enriching leisure activities and stimulating the senior population, using tools such as music and choreography with unique characteristics, which stand out for a being low-impact, a short-duration choreographies that do not require intense physical effort.
Senior Dance is an intervention modality for elderly people, focused on folk and ballroom dances, with diverse origins from around the world, specifically adapted to the abilities of elderly individuals.
Origin
What is Senior Dance®?
Senior Dance presents itself in two aspects: standing dances, aimed at more active seniors, and seated dances, for seniors with some motor impairment. In both aspects, there are simple and more complex dances, which allows for challenges tailored to the participant’s abilities.
Senior Dance is relies on music as a driving force for the physical activation, requiring the participants to perform different types of movements in a coordinated manner.
The repertoire is diversified in terms of rhythms, choreography and complexity of movements. This fact favors its adaptation to the group’s physical, cognitive and emotional aspects, as each person performs the exercises within their own limits and capacities.
Benefits
The practice of senior dance has so many benefits. At a motor level, it stimulates mobility, flexibility, balance and coordination; at a cognitive level, attention, concentration, memory and perception; at socioemotional level, this practice triggers satisfaction, pleasure in kinesthetic expression and promotes integration and social cohesion, a sense of belonging to the group, improving body image and self-esteem.
This intervention modality provides seniors with a different activity compared to what existed before, with many benefits for our participants, ranging from the development of attention, concentration, perception, lateralization, rhythm, recent memory and spatial orientation, to the cardiovascular system and musculotendinous aspects.
In addition to promoting independent motor work based on progressive physical conditioning, these benefits also include the reorganization of auditory, visual, and tactile perceptions, as well as a sense of physical and emotional satisfaction, also leading to improvements in well-being and sleep quality.
Where is it in the world?
Currently, we can find the Senior Dance in many countries: Germany, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Norway, Netherlands, Portugal and Switzerland.
How did it begin in Portugal?
This modality came to Portugal with the Danish Birgit Kristensen.
In 2019, Portugal was invited as a guest country for the first time, at International Senior Dance Congress in Norway, through Senior Dance Leaders Ana Santos and Dércia Rodrigues.
Following this invitation, Portugal began the process of integrating into the International Senior Dance Committee. Both leaders completed the basic and advanced Senior Dance training in France, the country that sponsored the integration, through the trainer Irène Juppont.
In 2023, Portugal was once again the guest country at the International Senior Dance Congress in France, a moment when its integration into the Internacional Senior Dance Committee was accepted.
Human Coop, Crl through the Senior Dance Leaders Ana Santos and Dércia Rodrigues, is the entity that holds the registered trademark of Senior Dance, represents Portugal on the International Senior Dance Committee and certifies the training of new Senior Dance Leaders.
Training of new Senior Dance® leaders
Would you like to learn this extraordinary tool for intervention in aging?
