With their slicked back ponytails and pom-poms in hand, 23 students from Dance Troupe and the Korean Pop Culture Dance Club alike, jetéd onto the wooden floor of the Belmont Village Senior Living facility, Sept. 22. Their performance marked Dancing for Joy’s debut. 

For the performance, Dancing for Joy showcased 10 dances — some choreographed by Dance Troupe members and others taken from popular K-Pop routines. 

Founded and headed by Rosemary Cabanban (11), Dancing for Joy’s  aim is to spread happiness and foster connections within the retired community. Cabanban has been dancing for 12 years and said she hopes to share her passion through the organization.

“I adore dance and I think it is an amazing thing for everyone,” she said. “It’s something that should be shared.”

Cabanban said she draws a lot of inspiration from her mom, who has worked closely with elders living in retired communities.  

“My mom is a family doctor and she’s told me in the past about her journey to becoming a doctor, and having to work at senior homes,” she said. “She would always tell me about how these senior homes were sometimes really sad because a lot of these people have family but they don’t have family who can take care of them. This made me think this could be something we address because dancing is such a positive thing. I’d love to share it with these people to maybe brighten their day or week.”

The process of putting on the performance took extensive work from the dancers, starting with the interest meeting at the beginning of this school year.

“I already have a group of people to dance with because of Dance Troupe and the people I compete with at my dance studio,” she said. “I reached out to my friends and I told them that I had this idea to do a dance show at senior homes. I thought maybe we could get 10 people max, but we ended up with 23 high-school dancers total, which is far greater than I had expected.”

Cabanban also reached out to the K-Pop Dance Club, in hopes of expanding their varieties of dance. 

“I didn’t want this to be an exclusive thing,” Cabanban said. “Instead, I want it to be open to everyone because I don’t want it to just be like Dance Troupe part two. I wanted it to be its own almost entity.”

Melody Zhang (11), a member of  Korean Pop Culture Dance Club (KPCDC), said that the connection between Dance Troupe and KPCDC is a big component that makes Dancing for Joy so inclusive.

“By joining Dancing for Joy, KPCDC is able to spread joy to senior communities as well as provide a bonding opportunity for both KPCDC and Dance Troupe,” Zhang said.

Once the group was assembled, Cabanban reached out to senior homes in the area to find which ones would be interested. 

“I started emailing and calling all these different senior homes until I got in touch with Belmont Village Senior Living activities director Kerilyn Howell,” she said. “We were emailing for like a month so I could pitch her my ideas, send her videos of dances that we’ve done in the past, and details about dates, times and floor space.”

Once a location was established, members of Dancing for Joy began rehearsing their 30-minute show. Cabanban used her garage until they were granted studio space at Prodigy Dance Company two weeks before the performance to rehearse the choreography.

Dancing for Joy showcased styles such as pom routines, lyrical choreography, K-pop dances, and tap dancing. For their opener, they danced to the song “Forget You” and KPCDC  performed the popular K-pop dance, “Touch.” 

Zhang said that although they do not choreograph their dances, often they have to rearrange their formations to fit the dance.

“For example, ‘Touch’ requires six members, but we only had five people signed up,” she said. “So we edited the formations. We usually tell our members to learn to dance on their own and then we set it in person and clean it.”

As the encore song, “I Want You Back” by The Jackson Five faded away, all of the members of Dancing for Joy joined together on center stage to wave goodbye to the crowd of residents. Cabanban and other members said they found immense gratification in making the residents feel what dancing made them feel — joy. 

“There was this one woman who said she was a cheerleader in high school,” Cabanban said. “The lady told us that she  absolutely loved it and there was even one resident who said we should go on America’s Got Talent. Overall, I’m really grateful for our audience members because I was a little worried initially, but it seemed that they all really enjoyed the show and that was ultimately the end goal, which really melts my heart.”