Real men dance. Real 60-plus men can perform real jumps and turns on stage - discarding the stereotypes of aging and manhood. 

The Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, a Maryland dance company that pays no heed to traditional casting, includes a program for men and women over 50. 

Meet Thomas Dwyer, 69, a star in the company. 

For Dwyer, dance is the pathway to regeneration in the bonus decades.

He grew up in Providence and still retains the Rhode Island R in his speech. After high school and a four-year stint in the Navy, he became an X-ray technician in Boston, where he met his wife. Forty-five years later, they have three children, five grandchildren and a week-old great-grandson.

For most of his career, he worked in Washington as a radio telecommunications officer, mainly with the State Department. "I feel strongly about the honor of having worked for our government. I'm proud to be an American," he says.

At age 52, he "retired" and plunged into a transition period of second adolescence. He studied art at a community college -- when he traveled for his government job, he had always made a point of visiting museums. He enrolled in a private investigator training program, passed the state exam and got his private eye license.

But one day he was taken to a dance performance at an elementary school. Many of the dancers were over 50. He saw the rapt attention in the eyes of the children as they watched the creative ways that the older bodies moved. "I was pretty much blown away," he says. Onstage he saw a positive model of aging and a way to have an impact on the young. "I thought I'd like to do this." 

He started coming to classes at the Dance Exchange. Turned out he had talent and stage presence. In 1988, he joined the company, one of five full-time dancers, and he found his purpose in My Time. 

For Liz Lerman, 56, who created the Dance Exchange in 1976, dancing is much more than a pretty twirl. It's a personal framework of development that involves three essential components: finding meaning, connecting with others and achieving growth.

Dancers awaken through movement. They connect in the course of the choreography. They raise the bar on performance. "What is beautiful about dancing is that you get better," says Lerman. "Aging isn't just about loss. It can be one of the most creative times in life."

But becoming a professional dancer after 50 takes work and discipline. Dwyer follows a daily regimen of aerobics and stretches: push-ups, jumping jacks, running in place, leg lifts, fist clenches, on and on. In one exercise, he throws a ball and runs to catch it before it lands. "That quickens my reaction time," he says.

He's lost more than 50 pounds. "I used to be overweight," he says. 

Onstage he can lift dancers who weigh more than he does. "My stamina is quite good," he says. "That's how I've grown." He feels fitter. No more bad back that plagued him since he was 19. "I've had no bones broken when I dive to the floor -- or fall to the floor, depending on the dance." He has to keep working on technique to perfect a jump. 

Choreography stimulates his brain. "The mind has to work as well to remember the movement," he explains. "I'm using that gray matter."

He has new confidence in himself. He doesn't cover up the limitations of age, but overcomes them. "I can show people who I am through my dance -- the way I move, the history of my body. I give them who I am. I don't falsify anything."

For many, My Time is a chance to be who you really are. As Dwyer explains: "The things I do might look silly. I don't care. I know who I am. I don't have to worry about what people think of me. I'm quite satisfied with what I'm doing, and I'm happy about it."

He's also made new friendships, regardless of age or gender. Performing as a group is a binding experience. Dancers are athletes, he says. "They are all marvelous," he continues. "They have all gone through the hardship of training to get where they are. . . . I don't want to let them down."

Performing a duet, especially with male dancers, is intense. "I get very emotional," he says. "It's like they are my sons. That's the strong bond we have -- how I love them and they love me." Friendship radiates out of the physical connection of dance. 

Dwyer sees how much he has changed. Before becoming a professional dancer, "I had a dim view of homosexuals. I was ultraconservative," he says. Now he has shed that identity. Most of the other male dancers are gay, and working with them has "opened my eyes as to the wrongness of what I was."

His new life feels right -- and it's more than a personal awakening. He is helping to change the way society views age and men. "I've been able to show society the usefulness of seniors in a way they never expected," he says. "I want to be a role model for senior men."

Purpose. Connection. Growth. You need all three whether your what next is in dance, poetry, politics or marriage -- in starting a business, running for office, performing community service, tending a friend, mentoring the young. Or in some combination of the above.

Dwyer and the dance troupe are now off to Japan to spread the word.