Sun City Oro Valley's "That Old Time Rock and Roll Dance Party" club brings new meaning to the term "rock around the clock."
The 270-member group's movers and shakers don't let middle age or retirement keep them off the dance floor. They meet regularly for parties that peel years off the calendar, making them feel as vibrant as they did as teens.
Kris Cohen, 64, and her husband, Earl, 68, started the club in 2008. There were Sun City clubs based around genres such as Western line dancing and square dancing, but nothing that scratched the itch to rock out.
"We started the rock and roll club so we could have dance parties - we used to call them sock hops - to play our music and have live bands and DJs," Kris Cohen said.
Now the club is so popular that there's a 20-person wait list. The group capped the membership ranks because so many dancers show up at dance parties that any more members would crowd the floor at the Sun City Oro Valley Mountain Vista Recreation Center.
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The club, with members ranging from the mid-40s to 90, uses the enthusiastic people power to benefit charities. On Sunday it held a potluck fundraiser for Youth On Their Own - a nonprofit that aids homeless youth - and donated more than $9,000.
Such is the popularity of the Old Time Rock and Roll Dance Party that Cohen wouldn't provide means to contact her for information about joining the wait list for publication.
"It's only open to Sun City residents," she reasoned, adding that anyone who lives there knows how to reach her.
The group holds at least six dance parties a year, with music spanning from the 1950s and '60s to 1970s disco and Southern rock, into hard and soft rock from the 1980s - "anything you can dance to," Kris said. "You pretty much just get up there and shake your you-know what ... the beauty of getting older is you lose inhibitions and don't care what people think."
Member Walt Nalewicki, 64, certainly fits the mold of a member without inhibitions. He's part of a crew that calls itself "The Village Idiots" who dress up as members of The Village People - Nalewicki is the repairman - and pantomime the notorious "YMCA."
He also joins others to stage skits that poke fun at rock history, sending up the Righteous Brothers in a skit dubbed "The Self-Righteous Brothers."
"I get to live my past," said Nalewicki, who dances with his wife, Lori. "I'm a child of the '60s.
"Me and my wife both enjoy dancing," Nalewicki said. "Plus it's another form of exercise, too. Getting off the couch and having some fun."
Brenda Hawkins, 66, said the club is every bit as fun for singles as it is for couples. She's a member of several Sun City Oro Valley clubs, but calls the rock club her favorite.
"Most people know each other," she said. "We get up and do a bit of line dancing. We never sit down the whole night."
One of Hawkins' favorite dances is The Twist.
"Doing The Twist was how we stayed slim back in the old days," she said. "We're lucky we can still do it."
According to Cohen, there's never any trouble getting dancers to take the floor.
"Bands have said to us that they love to come play for us," she said. "People are up from the first chord to the last dance. This is not a sit-down group. They're up there dancing."
Contact reporter Phil Villarreal at 573-4130 or pvillarreal@azstarnet.com
