Strictly for Seniors was the focus for a joyful Community Dance at The Hollies Community Hub in Musselburgh. Over 50 people from across the Musselburgh area came together on a busy Race Day Saturday in June for a chance to dance and share afternoon tea and friendship. No dance experience needed!

We enjoyed a fun performance designed by the Strictly for Seniors dance crew. The show included dances to much loved songs from Saturday Night Fever to My Cherie Amour, poems and stories and a lot of laughter. Debbie and The Hollies Community Hub team kept us fueled with a delicious afternoon tea and endless supplies of tea and coffee.

At the end of an afternoon of music, dancing, laughter, there were a lot of happy faces and gratitude for a good time. The Strictly for Seniors team had spent months sharing stories, memories and ideas and practicing smooth dance moves, hugged and celebrated a great event, created together.

The joy in the room was unmistakable.

As with so many good community projects, it all started many months earlier in a conversation. That conversation became many conversations which grew into a project that was as much fun in the making as it was in the performance and partying on that Saturday afternoon.

Strictly for Seniors is a story about people coming together to create something special for the wider community. They were all inspired by the idea of a Community Dance, bringing together music and movement, sharing memories and building friendship. It worked.

Strictly for Seniors grew from a conversation Between Sue from DFEL and Victoria Bianchi, a lecturer at Queen Margaret University. Victoria’s work explores storytelling, creativity and community participation.

We met to look at options for Victoria’s MSc student placements to come to the Musselburgh Friendship Group. At that time, Victoria was also looking for a community partner for a new project and we quickly discovered shared interests in storytelling, identity, place, psychology and brain health.

The first stage was to involve people affected by dementia and community members in developing the idea. Victoria ran a workshop at the DFEL Gathering, Nourishing Our Neurones, the group included people living with dementia, carers, community members and others. The table shared their memories about dancing and dances they had been to, the clothes they wore and dances they danced. There was a lot of enthusiasm for a community dance in Musselburgh, so we agreed to continue the conversation at the new Musselburgh Brain Health Hub, which launched shortly after the Gathering.

A few weeks after the Gathering we met together at the first weekly Brain Hub. Top of all our agendas was getting to know each other. We shared even more stories, going more widely into our loves and often our life stories. We talked about favourite songs, dancing, local history and community life. There was always plenty of laughter and new ideas surfaced almost every week. Storytelling, poetry, music and creativity quickly became as important as dance itself. The theme of dance and dancing wove through our conversations over the first few months of the Brain Health Hub as we got to know each other.

Strictly for Seniors didn’t emerge from a project plan. It grew out of conversations, relationships and shared interests. Dancing was a conversation topic that created a spark for conversations from teenage dance halls, outfits and favourite songs. We talked about meeting friends, courting partners and spending evenings dancing with family. Conversations flowed easily between music, places, people and memories. There was a lot of laughter .

In spring 2025, Amaya joined us as dance lead, working alongside Victoria, Carolane and the Brain Health Hub group. We’d assembled our team, had lots of ideas and were ready to take ideas into action. We started imagining what a community dance event could look like.

People wanted to move, include stories and involve different generations, bringing young and old together. From the beginning, people wanted to shape the project together. We developed playlists, shared memories, explored poetry and storytelling and gradually built ideas for the final performance.

Not everyone wanted to dance, and that was never the point. Some people preferred storytelling, music, crafts or helping organise the event. Every contribution mattered and everyone had choices for how they wanted to be involved.

Choosing the music was of course one of our biggest jobs and a big talking point. From Elvis and rock ‘n’ roll to Dolly Parton and Daniel O’Donnell, everyone had favourites.

Choosing a title was also an important decision for the group, and after a lot of consideration, we agreed on Strictly for Seniors.

Musselburgh was a big part of the story. We shared memories of local traditions and explored how music and singing were woven into community life. Betty and Cathy told us about the historic Fisherrow Fisherman’s walk, held to celebrate the end of the summer herring season and the safe return of the fishermen and we sang the song: The Boatie Rows. To celebrate this tradition, the performers started the dance waving the white handkerchief and wore the Musselburgh Tartan as a rosette.

We created a playlist filled with songs from different eras that were meaningful to us and made us want to dance. Saturday Night Fever captured the excitement of youth. My Cherie Amour brought back memories of romance and slow dances. We varied the tempo and energy as the programme developed and made sure there was a seated version of the dancing so everyone could take part. We also added poetry, storytelling and local history.

Led by Amaya, every dance was fully adaptable. Participants danced standing or seated, big and expressive or quiet and subtle. There were lots of ways to join in through conversation, crafting handmade rosettes, planning tartan props, sharing poetry or simply sitting back with a cuppa and enjoying the company.

We created a playlist filled with songs from different eras that were meaningful to us and made us want to dance. Saturday Night Fever captured the excitement of youth. My Cherie Amour brought back memories of romance and slow dances. We varied the tempo and energy as the programme developed and made sure there was a seated version of the dancing so everyone could take part. We also added poetry, storytelling and local history.

Led by Amaya, every dance was fully adaptable. Participants danced standing or seated, big and expressive or quiet and subtle. There were lots of ways to join in through conversation, crafting handmade rosettes, planning tartan props, sharing poetry or simply sitting back with a cuppa and enjoying the company.

When the big day arrived there was great excitement. Victoria decorated the room and everyone helped each other with costumes, glitter and a final touch of sparkle. The Hollies was buzzing with family members, friends from the Lunch Club and community guests as the performers prepared off stage.

The performers walked on waving white hankies and beaming from ear to ear. The performance was a 30minute showcase of the dances, stories and ideas they had created together, followed by an open floor where everyone could join in over tea and cakes. The performance was a great success and the team were delighted with how it all came together.

Small but important details like this connected the performance to the history, traditions and identity of the town. Dance, music and storytelling are usually about much more than performance. They carry memories, celebrate identity and keep local traditions alive and communities connected to their history.

It was an inspiring and heart-warming performance full of fun, humour and laughter. Performers, audience and the backstage folk all agreed it had been a very special event and a great time was had by all.

It was also successful on a deeper level. Over the 6 plus months of the project, we all were involved as members of a group making something together. We came together for different reasons. Some were interested in dance. Some wanted to meet other people. Some were curious. Some were simply looking for something new to try.

The real success of Strictly for Seniors was what happened over our time together. We enjoyed good company, laughter and the opportunity to get out and meet people. We found friendship, conversation and got to know one another better. We gained confidence and became part of the group. Friendships formed, stories were shared.

Our Wednesday mornings became something to look forward to. They gave us a reason to get out and about, somewhere to belong and something meaningful be part of. We had been given an opportunity to be part of something fun and memorable that we created together. It was exciting, and sometimes scary, to be part of a community event and everyone came away with our own story to tell about Strictly for Seniors and the time we had.

The Strictly for Seniors team told us:

Strictly for Seniors became something to look forward to and something to remember. As she took a breather from performing, one performer told us:

Another participant summed it up perfectly:

Strictly for Seniors was serious fun. The event was a great success and brought together performers new and old and academics with the community for am afternoon of dance, songs and stories

Looking back, it is hard to say exactly when the project began, but it grew from a spark to a reality through conversations with Queen Margaret University that led to a bigger more open conversation at the DFEL Gathering, Nourishing Our Neurones and then into the Musselburgh Brain Health Hub where it eventually became real in that Saturday performance. Those conversations connected us all to our memories of dancing, to favourite songs, and the clothes we wore and often our younger selves. Dance and dancing are about more than moving. When we dance, embodied memory isn’t just physical, we connect to feelings, identity, belonging, creativity and connections to places, people and activities. Long after the music stopped, people were still talking about the stories, friendships and memories that had been shared along the way.

The idea became a reality because a group got together to make it happen. The team brought together Members of the community, Members from the Musselburgh Meeting Centre and Friendship Group, The Hollies Community Hub team, Queen Margaret University students, staff and researchers and community partners. Each brought something unique and special to the conversations and the event.

Strictly for Seniors may have started with dance, but it became about much more than that. It became a celebration of community, creativity, friendship and the stories that connect people to one another and to place.

Dr Victoria Bianchi, the QMU project lead told us:

For many of us it felt very much like something made here, by us. People are already asking when they can dance together again….