At 95, dancer loves being leading lady
WINFIELD TWP — "Turn on the music!" shouted June Scarpino during a dance class recently at Concordia Lutheran Ministries retirement community. Scarpino, 75, is the youngest student in the line dancing class taught by Dorothy Mitchell.
Mitchell is 95 years old and holds class every Tuesday with six other ladies, all determined to keep kicking and stepping well into their later years.
Mitchell has been teaching the class for nearly five years.
This line dancing is not exactly what country music dance halls arrange on Saturday nights. Instead, Mitchell takes steps from polka, tango, waltz and other dances and turns the steps into a dance performed side by side in a line rather than with a partner.
"I really emphasize steps," Mitchell said.After rehearsing the steps, Scarpino and the others are eager to try the steps with a song.During class, they snap to attention when Mitchell calls, "Kick, turn, clap, lift!" or "Step, touch, step, touch, left, tango!" all in rhythm with the music.Each dancer intently listens to the calls and tries to mimic Mitchell, whose red shoes are easy to follow."I love waltzing. That's my favorite," Ruthann Sulitz said.Some of Mitchell's students, like Meri Rieseck, have experience dancing. Rieseck has been square dancing since the 1960s.Others, like Scarpino, are dancing for the first time. In her five years teaching at the Haven II apartments, Mitchell has had one male student who participated for a short time but had to stop for health reasons."It was nothing we said,"Rieseck joked.During line dances, it is easy for the dancers to get distracted or fall out of step. Mitchell keeps going and just lets the students fall back in when they can, but it's never without a laugh in the line."See why we have fun?" said Lee Anna Kennedy, another of Mitchell's students.The class tried to learn the complicated tango to a song with the lyrics, "Tango is a dance that I just can't seem to master." Students all seemed to agree.
<table width="300" height="275" border="0" align="right" valign="top" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td><embed src="/assets/mov/BE50524716.MOV" width="320" height="250" autostart="true" loop="false" ></embed></td></tr><tr><td align="center"><a href="http://www.apple.com/quicktime/" target="_blank"><span class="style11">Requires Quicktime Media Player </a><br><font size="1" face="Tahoma, Times New Roman">Video by Brandon Gerthoffer</font></span><td></tr></table>A dancer since she was 6 years old, Mitchell took dance classes from Ruth Fairgrieve in Oakland, where she was raised. Fairgrieve also taught legendary dancer and actor Gene Kelly for a short time while teaching Mitchell.Mitchell learned nearly every form of dance but especially loves pointe ballet. When she was a teen, her mother took her to see Anna Pavlova perform ballet in Pittsburgh.Mitchell danced in many area venues and belonged to the chorus at the Enright Theater in East Liberty."Everywhere I've performed has been torn down," she said, laughing.Though she enjoyed performing, Mitchell never wanted to perform professionally."I always wanted to teach," she said.Even before she married at age 21, she opened a dance studio. Her husband was a salesman who moved occasionally, and Mitchell opened a dance studio wherever they went."I never made much money in teaching. But that's not what I was in it for," she said.Mitchell's friend Esther Shook, who Mitchell had taken dance classes with, lived at Concordia before Mitchell moved in. Shook introduced her to line dancing and said she had to teach a dance class when she moved in. And that's what she did.Mitchell plans to teach as long as her health allows."Dancing keeps me moving," she said. "When I get a pain, I immediately work it out."The Lord's been good to me. ... Ihad a heart attack once, but that didn't slow me down."
