March 03, 2008

Hedy Tower may or may not be the only 94-year-old dance teacher in America. Surely she's the only one who teaches to Pink Floyd. 

She's been teaching dance - and still teaches on Tuesday nights - since she arrived in Philadelphia from her native Germany in 1940. Many current students have been with her since, oh, the 1970s - or longer.
 
"I started taking classes with Hedy when I was 8," said Robin Jarrett, now 48. "She's a huge part of my life." 

Jeanne Fisher would rather not disclose her age, but she said there simply were periods of her life she could not have endured without this class. 
On Hedy's 94th birthday, she wrote this card: 

"I remember that our classes now are just as difficult as they were 45 years ago. . . . You are a creative force in the world and the world makes room for you. I make room for you and always will. I am looking forward to 95, 96 . . . et al. Love, Jeanne. 

"P.S: The front [of the card] is a single ocean wave rising - you." 
On Tuesday evening, Hedy began, as usual, by leading her class of 10 in stretching. She put on Pachelbel's Canon in D, and dimmed the lights. 
Once 5 feet, 4 inches tall and 110 pounds, she's now 5 feet, 98 pounds. She looks unexceptional, slim, gray, and slightly stooped - until she sits on the rug in dance tights and puts on dance slippers. 

She stretches her legs out flat on the floor, rolls forward and reaches way past her pointed toes, as though she were Elastigirl of The Incredibles. She can bury her nose into her knees, flat on the floor. 
Her movements as she lies on the floor are poetic - legs stretched straight and true, wider than 90 degrees, toes pointed. 
"I would still trade my legs for hers any day," said Carol Lorber, a student since 1975. 

Hedy leads them in leg lifts, working on their core - generations before "core" became a buzzword. "Lift up . . . hold it . . . hold your buttocks tight . . . and down." 

Some groan, struggling to do what she seems to do effortlessly. She teaches them strength and flexibility so they can be more expressive in dance. 
Hedy discovered the stage at age seven, and danced professionally until she escaped the Nazis in 1940. She settled in Philadelphia, married (she's long a widow), had two daughters, and opened her dance studio. 

She gave up her own leotard, so to speak, at 89, after she broke her pelvis. She slipped on ice getting out of a car. Forty percent of Americans over 65 die within a year after breaking a hip or pelvis. Hedy was back in months, still teaching scores of students, including children, at her Jenkintown studio. 
At 92, she was doing a stretch, rolling her legs over her head, touching her toes to the floor behind her head, when a bone fractured in her back. She suffers from osteoporosis. 

After that, she closed her studio, retired, and moved into Cathedral Village, a retirement community in the Upper Roxborough section of Philadelphia. 
"We wouldn't let her stop," said Fisher, the 45-year veteran. "We begged." 
"We encouraged Hedy to teach," said Lorber. "We knew how important it is to her." 

Hedy's class at Cathedral Village is by invitation only - all women but one. Last year, Hedy invited John Godlewski, 29, who works in the dining room, to join. 
"I figured I'd try it," he said. "I got hooked. It's kind of like a release. You let go of everything. It's like we're painting a picture of what we feel inside, and the dance floor is the canvas." 

In classes over the years, Hedy has commanded students to be a "tree," to be "anger," "silence" and "noise." 

Once, she instructed them to invent a language, and they were all blabbering - yet somehow communicating - as they flitted about the room. 
Once, she ordered pupils to be sizzling bacon. 

On Tuesday, at the request of Diane Nussbaum of Cherry Hill, who's been coming to class since 1971, Hedy put on a CD of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. 

After the stretching and strength work, students picked up silk scarves Hedy dropped in the middle of the floor. 

They danced and frolicked, feeding off the music and one another's movements, or their own emotions. 

Godlewski tied a purple scarf with black polka dots around his waist. Others draped scarves over their heads like head dresses, or waved them wildly. 
They weren't thinking, but feeling, flying around the room, narrowly missing one another, ducking under legs, waltzing together, circling, rolling on the floor, leaping. 

Occasionally, Hedy barked instructions, such as this: "Dance a little bit more sexy!" 

Several months ago, Hedy started a Tuesday/Thursday 10 a.m. class at Cathedral Village for residents. 

Her students sit in chairs. Many are limited with walkers, even wheelchairs. 
"One is 98, and I still criticize her," Hedy said. " 'Hold your head up. Stretch your leg.' She's very good." 

Hedy prods them to let go of inhibitions, to improvise in their movements. 
"It helps you to know yourself better," she told the 98-year-old. 
"If I don't know myself by now -" the woman replied. 
But it is her Tuesday night class, in which her students are her dearest friends, that she loves most. 

Jarrett, her student since age 8, recounted that when she turned 15, she told Hedy she had no more money for lessons. Hedy told her she couldn't quit. Instead, Hedy hired Jarrett to help teach. Jarrett became a dance teacher, and made dancing her career. 

Not long ago, she changed careers, and became a personal trainer. She uses many of the techniques she learned from Hedy. 

Hedy no longer charges for her classes. Cathedral Village won't let her. Back in the day, she charged $16 to $20 per class. 

When class was over Tuesday night, students were in no hurry to leave. They visited with one another and with Hedy. Each woman hugged her goodbye. 
Next week, Hedy may not teach as usual. She thinks the students may want to give her a party instead. 

She turns 95.