Since Elita has ceased her association with Amateur Dancers Magazine (now American Dancer), a great many of her long-time readers and fans have expressed their disappointment at no longer finding her column in the magazine. Many others have expressed their gratitude at having been able to enjoy her inspirational writing for so many years.

Below is what Art Williams, a senior dancer from Mississippi, had to say, and many people share his thoughts. However, he is wrong in one respect when he says her column is 'no more'. For more than two years now, Elita has written for my website and has had her articles published in her corner right here. I hope she will continue to do so for many years to come

Rene Zgraggen

AN ODE TO ELITA

I did not see her column in the last couple of issues of Amateur Dancer so I started Emailing around and found that for some reason or another, her column devoted to seniors for some 17 years now, is no more. What a shame! She single-handedly did more for Senior dancing that anyone I know of, but then again, there is a lot I don’t know.

I started dancing, socially, at the age of 47 and competitively at age 50. I am now 78 and still dancing competitively, mainly due to the efforts of people like Elita; Ann Smith; Ann Durocher to name a few. My wife is 71 and started dancing socially when she was 57, competing with me at age 62. Elita knew, and wrote about the fact that we Seniors also love to dance and need encouragement just like the High School and College kids and working Adults, with one exception, many Seniors have the money to further their desires, whereas the younger age groups are a little strapped due to their “growing up” needs and priorities.

Elita’s monthly pieces in Amateur Dancer were treasured by most of us Seniors as she was more or less our “spokesperson” be it in the areas of dress, demeanor, practicing, social versus competitive motivations, etc, she touched them all within the span of several articles during a given year. She imparted her love of dancing to all of us in such a way that we could often relate her words to our particular situations.

Seniors need a spokesperson as our needs are perhaps a bit more unique than other age groups. Most of us are retired and use dancing as a combination of physical and mental exercise as well as a motivating factor in how we can further socialize not on with our peers, but dancers of all age groups. As a long time competitive dancer, I have long noted that most of the folks helping to put on competitions are usually Seniors, likewise, when we attend social dances, once again most of the folks helping to run the event are Seniors. Why, we have the time, just about all of the Adult aged dancers are either working or in school, hence pretty well occupied when it comes to free time. Here again, Elita has contributed quite a bit by urging those of us who have time to get involved with organizing and operating both social and competitive events. We are all well aware of the fact that Pro Am events run by Pros are much more costly than events sponsored and run by Amateurs as they must be because these events are one of the sources of the average Pros income. Again, Elita had highlighted in her pieces ways in which we seniors can be helpful at these events to help keep the costs down thereby allowing more people to participate from an affordability standpoint.

The aforementioned are just a few of the services that Elita helped provide with antidotal examples that she wrote about in her monthly column.

I already miss her pieces in the “New Amateur Dancer” magazine. They were both informative and inspirational and now they are missed. Well done, Elita!

Art Williams
Diamondhead, MS

Special Supplement

Ava and the Rainbow French fry
Elita Sohmer Clayman

We took the grandchildren and our son and daughter-in-law out to a nice restaurant in Northern Virginia where they live, to celebrate Valentine’s Day. This holiday has become a very important holiday throughout the country now days. It is a holiday that signifies the power of love not only between couples but also between family members.

When I was a kid, your father took an old shoe box, cut a slit in the top cover and you covered it with colored wrapping paper or even a brown bag from the grocery store and took it to school and everyone would put in a small card that cost about a penny in those days, as a Valentine card for you and you did the same for each child in the class. However, some children were mean spirited and did not put a card into everyone’s box and that often made the child sad because he or she did not get lots of cards.

There was a boy in my class named Ralph and when he opened his box, he had only two cards, one from me and one from another girl. I will never forget even after 65 years of remembering it, the sadness on his face. He came over to me and thanked me five times for the card I had sent. As an eleven year old at that time, I felt such empathy and sadness for him. When my children were in elementary school, the teacher sent home a list with every child’s name on it to encourage every child to send a card to every child. My grandson is in kindergarten now and my daughter-in-law said yesterday that this is what his school is encouraging now too. That is the way it should be. No child should feel slighted when opening his or her Valentine box and seeing only a very few bunch of cards there. This already shows a mean spiritedness within the children and their parents who do not inspire their kids to write a card to everyone. It is a matter of decency, I think.

I am sure Ralph (even remember his last name) is a fine senior citizen now with children of his own and probably is more of a successful adult than many of the mean spirited kids from way back in 1946 or so.

When we were eating dinner last night to celebrate Valentine’s Day, little 3.5 years old Ava Maya took her French fry and bent in a shape and said "this is like a rainbow." What an insightful child to take a fry and see in it the shape of a rainbow. A rainbow is a spectrum, an arc and a band. So we can relate a rainbow to ballroom dancing. Here is how. Ballroom dancing is a combining of movement of feet, arms, hands, legs, shoulders and of course the brain which is the arc of the whole being of dancing. Without the brain stimulating the thought process, we could not even attempt to ballroom dance. Of course, other forms of dance that some of the young people are involved in may not appear to need the brain to stimulate them.

When we first started to dance in 1977, I could not stop at first from looking at my feet because I thought my feet would not move if I did not look at them. We all feel that way and usually stop after a few hours of dancing instruction when we realize that we need not look at our feet to actually dance. When we actually realize that, we are fine with this new understanding of dancing.

So to the French fry looking like a rainbow to little 3.5 year old Ava, to the ballroom dancer who looks at his or her feet and to all of us seniors who still dance and enjoy the spectrum, the arc and the band that plays for our dancing, I say Ballroom Dancing is still one of the most invigorating, demanding, lovely and magnificent activity everyone can do, especially seniors and do it we shall for as long as we can.

Elita Sohmer Clayman February 14, 2011 Valentine’s Day which is a day of love for our spouses, our parents, our children, our grandchildren and our friends and not to be last-our ballroom dancing events.