At senior talent show, performers show age is nothing but a number

Ethyl Kendrick, a longtime volunteer at the Downey City Library, came to see what other seniors could do. A Downey resident for 40 years, her head scarves are famous, and her smile can light up a dull room.

“The eleven o’clock morning show is the most popular one,” said Angelina, the Parks and Rec young lady who gave me my ticket for the Senior Follies and Talent Show.

To have your dancing shoes on, and be in costume with make-up applied any time before noon, seems like a miracle to me. But then again, when one enters the golden years, the best hours of the days usually occur from late morning to late afternoon. So maybe this is peak time for a reason.

And these performers did represent the Golden Years. But then, so did the audience, who on average looked older than the entertainers. “How old is ‘Senior’ for performers?” I asked and Angelina said, “fifty-ish.”

“Nobody here could have lived here longer than I have,” said Rosalie Sciortino, age 96, as she settled down to await the show. Rosalie has put in many years volunteering for the Downey Symphony and the Downey Art League and she still draws a little and writes poetry. “I’m ready to go, anytime,” she said, “but today we’re here and having fun.”

While waiting for the doors to open, several members of the audience did a little quick step and some hummed a bright tune. Dress-up casual was the order of the day. Sparkly necklaces with pretty silk blouses, that is. Men wore polo shirts and some had caps. A few canes and walkers helped with mobility, and there was at least one motorized chair. To balance the oldest in age, there were several well-behaved children. It was a Saturday morning.

The auditorium at the Barbara Riley Senior Center was set up cabaret- style, with cookies at each place at the 14 tables for eight that filled the floor, and every place was taken. Buckets of popcorn were set out and Parks and Rec provided coffee as well.

Angelina and Isobel, now dressed in black party dresses, checked us in. Tables were assigned in the order they were bought: the show is no longer free, but costs $6. Rosalie and I were center back, at Table 11, four rows from the stage. Closer would have been better, but I had only purchased them the day before. Rosalie’s vision has dimmed, and so has my hearing. But together we make a most appreciative audience.

I caught vocalist Claudette Clayton before she went on. This is her sixth time in Downey’s Follies, and she also performs with senior groups and works in the Children’s Ministry at her church.

“I just sing,” she said, but that has included a performance at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem. “And I have aches and pains, but I left them at home. They can’t come here with me,” she said. Claudia admitted to being a classy 78.

To hear Claudia inhale “It Had To Be You,” as she strolled through the audience in her purple jumpsuit, mike in hand, was to be tranported to a golden age of live entertainemnt.

And it was that thrill of the live performance that entered us that morning, the excitement and awarerness you get in Broadway musicals and intimate club revues. We were being given that chance to tap our toes, nod our heads, and sway as memories of good times flashed by. And sway we did, when Bill Schwartz came back after Intermission to give us a bouncy interpetation of New York New York.

Fernie “Elvis” Ramirirez sang as he walked around the tables, and his baritone hit home, as did the sight of the brilliantly embroidered golden emblem on his white Elvis suit. Fernie performs at senior centers and private parties.

Music from the Islands was performed by dancers from the Hula Ku’uipo O’Hula Dance Studio. “That means, Sweethearts of Hula,” said Virginia Yoshiyama who sat at our table in her red Studio t-shirt, where she is taking lessons with Toni Stewart.

In real-time outside the show, Virginia is the coordinator of volunteers for the Downey Library. “It’s all in the hands,” I said. “And in the feet,” Virginia added. Husband Tom watched but does not yet come to the dance studio. This year in the audience, Virginia, but maybe next time on that stage.

So many acts, so little time to tell about them. Renee Apodaca appeared onstage playing a 1920’s German cabaret tune on a live piano, dressed in a tough-guy black t-shirt, a black homberg in her head and a diamond stud in her ear.

Janet Minikus gave us her Sophie Tucker imitation of a “red-hot momma,” and for a change of pace, came back after Intermission in leprechaun green and white sequins to enunciate the names of McNamara’s Band.

A pareu-clad trio, each with a white hibiscus behind the ear and waist-length dark hair, showed us Tahitian rhythm dances from Ohana Hula Halau, the family hula school in Norwalk.

“Geriatric Joe” Palmquist hasn’t lost his touch, getting appreciative laughs with jokes about memory loss. But hey, it could happen to anyone.

For sixteen years, local senior citizens have been warbling, hoofing, and otherwise treading the light fantastic, and audiences keep asking for more.

The performers come from Downey, South Gate, Bellflower, Cerritos and Compton, and the one thing they have in common is that they all keep very busy at what they love.

The singers participate in choirs or the Bellflower Civic Chorus, and perform in homes for the elderly. Some teach school and some bring home bowling trophies.

Dancers take or teach salsa classes, they do square dancing, and keep fit with the hula or the more percussive Tahitian rhythms. But a serene smile and the tilt of the head can also be sensuous and less strenuous.

The performers all have learned that with the fullness of age, an exhausting tap routine, or a Lady Gaga dress made of raw meat, is not necessary. A suggestive gesture, a few steps to the side, the graceful handling of an LED light-filled hoop, can keep their audience mesmerized while they sing their songs and strike their poses.

Some of the senior talent are still actively involved in stage, TV and radio show biz; Alma Gamez is running for Ms. Senior America in Atlantic City, New Jersey in October. They all are doing what they love.

Colleen Fox, show producer deluxe and soprano soloist, saved the best for the finale, Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, recalling an ancient time when song and dance and poetry were all one, on a stage together. The lively and dramatic arts expressed thanks to a greater power, thanksgiving for the wonder of existence.

Colleen interpreted the music as a praise-song to life: I’ll stand before the Lord of Song, with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.

As they say, it’s not the years in your life, it’s the life in your years that count.