Dance enthusiasts are finding their passion at DQ Ballroom and Fitness
By Rose Simpson
Like many little girls, Lynne Jamme dreamed of becoming a ballerina but her mother couldn’t afford the lessons. Today she is realizing her dream of becoming a dancer in her 50s as she competes in national ballroom dance competitions.
“I started out looking for a sport that could take me into my golden years,” she says. “I’ve always been athletic but I have to pace myself. [With ballroom] I can do beautiful dances competitively, and it’s given me a new perspective on aging; age is certainly not a barrier to dancing.”
Lynne’s ballroom journey began with a gift certificate to DQ Ballroom and Fitness, a studio in Ottawa’s west end that offers a variety of dance packages for beginners, intermediates and advanced students of all ages. Lynne sampled Latin and ballroom and decided that she preferred elegantly sailing along the dance floor to the body blitz required by the Latin masters. She was attracted to ballroom for its wide variety of styles, from American smooth to the International Standard which includes the quick step, tango and Viennese waltz.
“I thought it was a great way to meet people and stay agile,” she says. “It’s good for posture, for balance, and you get to wear beautiful gowns.”
For the first few years, she danced with an international coach from Russia and now has an amateur dance partner who shares her dreams of continuing to dance competitively.
“I didn’t know we could do competitive dance at our age,” says the health-care sales associate and part-time emergency nurse at the Montfort Hospital. “I have always been a competitive person. I like to win; I’m in sales for a reason!”
Sheila Parry and Jim White have been ballroom dancing for years, even motoring through Jim’s post-operative surgery on both knees. They first began taking lessons through school board programs and jumped on the DQ bandwagon when it opened in 2020. They even managed to dance during the pandemic, with some restrictions.
“It gives us a sport we can do together,” says Sheila, a former public servant who now runs hiking getaways part-time. “We take lessons a lot and we enjoy learning together. We dance together, and Jim dances with other people because I travel a lot.”
Jim believes ballroom dancing gave him a good grounding for his recent knee replacement because it kept him physically fit through the rehabilitation process. He was able to get back on the dance floor in just five months compared his first partial knee replacement recovery, which took him nearly a year.
Shelia says there is much more to ballroom than dance steps.
“When you’re learning to dance, it’s a mini-holiday,” she says. “There’s no time to dwell on problems when you are learning new steps. It takes you out of your day, and you can just focus on having a good time.”
For DQ ballroom owner Melanie Bussiere, the business was a dream come true. She began as a fitness and dance instructor, then set up her own business after the gym where she worked closed its door. For the first few years, she and her partner worked from a fitness studio in her basement and taught in different venues around the city. In 2020, they rented a space at a former Montessori school at 1160 Maitland Avenue in hopes of putting all their programs in one place.
Then came the pandemic, which meant their business was physically open for two years but closed for 18 months. To keep the business going, she set up a YouTube channel to provide online content that DQ shared with its community.
“When everything was shut down, people were getting depressed so we opened a Facebook site where people could come and chat, stay in the loop with one another. We ran fitness classes [online] seven days a week and people would come, log in early for a chat, and see their friends. It was a way of keeping our community together.”
The gamble to open her own studio paid off when one of the daycares on Maitland downsized and DQ was given extra space to add a gym, change room and small dance studio for private lessons and small groups, in addition to its 3,000-square-foot ballroom. Today, DQ is able to offer group and private lessons, social dances wedding dance preparation, strength training and conditioning, trigger point therapy and group fitness classes.
“Most people come because they want to meet people,” Melanie explains. “They want that socialization.”
Social dances on Friday nights and on Sunday afternoons offer an opportunity for new and experienced students, singles and couples, to make new friends and learn different dance styles. DQ offers a workshop from 7:45 to 8:30 on Friday night where dance enthusiasts are taught to dance by two different instructors. There is an open dance until 11 p.m., during which there is a guarantee of no wallflowers because DQ instructors act as “taxi” dancers for those without partners.
The cost of the workshop and social is $15 per person, and the social alone is $10. The Sunday afternoon dance is $10 with no instructors.
“People of all ages can start ballroom,” says Sheila. “I think there are a lot of seniors who would like to try because they are looking to do things together. They’re looking for things that are active that you can do at any time of the day or night. There are a lot of people who don’t like to drive at night, so they can do ballroom during the daytime.”
dqballroomandfitness.com
