Shirley Clements is one of the people who can back the saying “age is just a number” with a proper physical demonstration. And she did it with the swagger of a teenager.
Clements, a 60-year-old dance teacher at North Surrey Secondary School in Canada, is about to retire. She plans to move down to Mexico and continue teaching at a Cirque du Soleil school for kids.
But before she goes, she wants to show students and teachers alike that life has just begun when you retire. What better way to do than on a hip-hop dance competition you created almost 20 years ago?
That is right! Clements took the stage with a group of her students dancing a hop-hop routine on Bruno Mars’s ‘Uptown Funk’ and nailed it down to the last step.
Kitted out with a pink hoody, she joined the group of girls with moves ranging from “trust fall” to “Oppa Gangnam Style” favorite, “horse riding.” The cheering crowd’s intensity rose with every move the student-favorite teacher made.
The girls’ routine came to an end. But when they moved to the back, Clements stayed on the main floor. Moments later, a group of boys surrounded the teacher. Together they moved to the next part of the routine.
The routine started to incorporate more and more breakdance moves with an unexpected grand finale when Clements decided to do a headstand spin and pull it off.
At that point, the show was over, even for the dancers who couldn’t believe that a 60-year-old dance teacher can make such tasking moves. But, if anything, Clements will stay in their memories as the coolest teacher of them all.
