Dancers in training from the School of Richmond Ballet perform at Westminster Canterbury earlier this month.
It started much like any other youth ensemble performance: Dancers in training from the School of Richmond Ballet filed onstage, followed by fifth and sixth grade ambassadors from Minds in Motion, the ballet’s enrichment program for elementary students. They rolled their shoulders, stretched their arms and bounced their knees, warming their bodies and awakening their minds.
This time, however, they encouraged the audience to join them. In the audience, toddlers and preschoolers leapt from their seats, waving their hands in the air and shaking the handmade instruments they brought for the occasion. Behind them, residents of Westminster Canterbury Richmond — many in their 80s and 90s — followed along.
The July 16 event was a first for the ballet’s youth ensembles, blending a typical live performance with an interactive exploration of the fundamentals of movement. But it was also a return to a familiar scene at Westminster Canterbury, one that had been missing since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Located in North Side Richmond, the retirement and assisted living community is home to more than 900 residents, as well as the Child Development Center, which offers care for about 100 infants, preschoolers and elementary school-age children. For years, residents have stopped by classrooms to hold babies and read books or looked forward to a visit from a group of preschoolers. And every October, the two groups parade through the campus in their Halloween finest.
These intergenerational interactions have long been a draw for residents and parents alike. Meredith Hill, who has a 4-year-old in preschool and an infant enrolling in August, chose the child care center after visiting her own grandparents at Westminster Canterbury. While they died before Hill’s children were born, her grandmother spoke often about the joy of seeing children in the hallways or watching them on the playground from her room.
“It really enriched the last days, weeks, months of her life,” Hill says. “That effervescence of life that kids have, it reminded her that she still had that kind of spark in her.”
Everything changed in 2020. Like many child care centers, Westminster Canterbury’s shuttered for several months. When it reopened that summer, health protocols restricted cross-campus interactions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 among the older residents.
As the pandemic eased, intergenerational programming slowly returned. Two residents are a steady presence for story time, and preschoolers recently sang alongside the men’s choir in a concert. But Sandy Phillips, director of the Child Development Center, saw an opportunity to expand the intergenerational offerings with more intentional activities.
This effort started with the hiring of a dedicated intergenerational programs coordinator, thanks to a three-year innovation grant from the Westminster Canterbury Foundation. Dee Caras is tasked with tapping into the interests and experiences of residents and matching them with activities that appeal to a younger generation. For instance, she says, residents might take a group of summer campers fishing in the community pond or share their musical talents in a classroom.
“As a gerontologist, it’s sad to me that the word ‘retirement’ is an acceptable stopping point in the developmental stages that a person has,” Caras says. “This is a wonderful way of continuing the contributions, skills and purposeful engagement that everyone has to offer.”
The grant also included funding for new programming that would reach across the campus. Phillips wanted to find an activity that would draw people of all ages, so she started asking around. The Richmond Ballet — which performs annually at Westminster Canterbury — came up again and again among the residents.
Phillips knew who to call. A self-described “dancer in my former life,” Phillips majored in dance at Virginia Commonwealth University before receiving her Master of Fine Arts in dance from the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. When she moved back to Richmond to work at Westminster Canterbury, she wanted to connect with dancers in the area and landed on Richmond Ballet’s advisory committee.
She brought a proposal to School of Richmond Ballet Director Tara Penick and Minds in Motion Director Jordan Glunt. They jumped at the chance to collaborate.
“Each season, [Westminster Canterbury] invites us to have the youth ensembles do a 30-minute performance, and then the professional company performs in the spring,” Penick says. “This is the first time they asked if we could come up with a format where everyone would interact with our dancers.”
That’s just what happened on a July morning in the community’s November Theater. After joining in the warmup, audience members learned what makes a plié different from a glissade and watched the dancers perform to a cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” Then, they had a chance to show off their own moves in a choreographed sequence taught by Glunt. From the aisles and their chairs, they clapped their hands, shuffled from side to side, and swayed to the music.
“Dance can cross so many boundaries and bring people together,” Glunt says. “You get that oxygen-rich blood flowing through your brain, and you just feel good from moving — and that is at any age.”
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