When you think of a dance class, the image of people seated on chairs in a circle is maybe not what comes to mind.

But that’s how things started at a class in Yellowknife last Wednesday, involving Canada’s National Ballet School. A team from the Toronto-based school was in the N.W.T. as part of a program aimed at older adults.

The school’s goal is to bring more of this type of programming to Yellowknife and other N.W.T. communities.

“Often the work we do is in long term care settings,” Ashleigh Powell, dance instructor and the school’s director of community dance programs.

“In long term care settings you can be moved throughout the day, people move you … [Dance is] such an opportunity to allow people to have agency over their movement and to move to the music they love.”

Wednesday’s class was open to anyone and it began with Powell and the group seated in chairs, tapping their toes and moving their arms to music from a variety of genres. Later, they stood for some barre work on their chairs before exploring the room to a waltz. The class ended with more chair choreography, to Proud Mary.

The National Ballet School group is working with Yellowknife-based organizations, including the Alzheimer Society of Alberta and the Northwest Territories, on the initiative.

Sandra Crocker from the Alzheimer Society in Yellowknife said the ballet school team had visited earlier in the year to start planning the dance class.

“It’s absolutely fantastic to see,” Crocker said. “You realize how important music is to folks that have Alzheimer’s or dementia … just to see the smiles on their faces and the faces of their families.”

Potential for more dance classes

The National Ballet School says its community dance programs reach more than 30,000 people across Canada every year, through in-person and virtual programs and training. In recent years, it’s been focused on tackling the stigma surrounding dementia.

Part of its programming involves training people in communities, including in the N.W.T., to deliver and support dance programs while raising awareness of the benefits of dance and movement for older adults.

“We know the research tells us dance has all these great health benefits,” Powell said. “We don’t do it for the health benefits, we do it for the joy. We do it for the joy of moving together.”

The ballet school team plans to return to N.W.T. in the fall to lead training activities.

It’s a program Crocker is looking forward to seeing grow in the N.W.T.

“You can see just from today how important it is to get people moving,” said Crocker.

“I just hope that it continues.”