Tina Leverton lives in Wales and she took up ballet at the age of 62, after coming across an advert for senior classes in her town, with a supporting photo, showing women her age holding on to a ballet bar in front of a mirror.
“when i saw thisshe says daily The Guardian, my childhood memories came flooding back, and I thought to myself: enough wasted time, let’s go!” Because her dream as a little girl was indeed to become a ballerina and dance on pointe shoes. Child of a poor, working-class Indian immigrant family, she was told by her mother that paying for tuition was impossible. “So I put that in a corner of my head, and i forgot“.
A new start after 60: ‘I took up ballet at 62 – and it transformed my life’ https://t.co/odvnmFYmoK
— The Guardian (@guardian) January 17, 2022
Tina Leverton has worked all her life in customer service, as a switchboard operator. She founded a family, had a daughter, stood aside for others. And then, at 62, she pushed the door of the dance class that changed her life. She says with a laugh that over the years, making her first “grand plie” was a test of strength: “I could bend down but not go up, same for the pirouette, lifting one leg behind you, it took me three months to do it. I was afraid my hips wouldn’t hold up, but in the end they held.”
She explains how much she fought, much more mentally than physically, against received ideas, defeatism, this “I can not” strongly rooted over the years. She also describes the relief, the feeling of lightness once past these barriers, the pleasure of struggling to learn a new trick, the joy of achieving it.
Finally, an unexpected consequence: thanks to dance, Tina Leverton grew up. Literally. She gained a centimeter and a half more: the fact, as her doctor explained to her, of having straightened her upper body. She also gained muscle and her lower back pain disappeared. “And then, she also confided to the ITV channel, there is intense happiness, dancing is therapy, so whatever the age, never tell yourself: ‘never'”. She now hopes to convince the defeatists. And it’s on the right track: since its publication, its story has been brandished as an inspiration on Twitter, a hope, the confirmation that life is always ahead of you. Even at 60.