Coila Stevens dances at her line dancing class every Thursday at 2:45 p.m.
Coila Stevens says she danced for the first 30 years of her life. Now, at the age of 92, she spends her time at Presbyterian Village North taking dance classes.
At 2:45 p.m. on Thursdays you can catch her at the “advanced” line dancing class, where she stays until 3:15 p.m. to help out with the beginners. She stands in the back so that when the line dancing calls for a turn, she’s visible to observe and follow.
Stevens grew up in Indiana and attended Indiana University where she studied Physical Education and partook in dance classes. She took a hiatus from dancing to raise a family and resumed with dancing in her 60s when she signed up for the clogging classes at a facility in Indianapolis. She joined two clogging groups – the Still Kicking Cloggers and the Circle City Cloggers.
They volunteered to clog dance at the Indiana State Fair every day for two weeks, and they also did two trips to Europe. Clogging is her favorite style of dancing and she did it for 20 years.
When she moved to Texas, she signed up for dance classes with the Syncopated Ladies at the Denton Senior Center. While living in Denton, Stevens also participated in the Rogues and Ranch dance classes for 10 years. When she moved to PVN, she started attending Dance Fusion and Line Dancing classes.
Stevens says she enjoys the workout because it’s not just a physical workout but a mental one as well.
“They see us move our feet or move our arms, they don’t know what’s going on up here [she points to her head]. So the mental process is there and that’s as important as the feet,” she says.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhcP8eWb0BA]
