dancer started classes later in life and the passion keeps on growing

by: kathryn greenawayin her own words, lesley charters cotton is making up for lost time. you can find the 71-year-old dorval resident in the dance studio five days a week, sometimes twice a day. and she’s not learning to waltz with a partner or plié at the barre. cotton is heavily into the house and hip hop scenes and is a devotee of what is called international line dancing.house, for the uninitiated, is a street-dance, aka urban dance, which focuses on settling into the “pocket” of the music while executing smooth footwork and toying creatively with pacing and contrasting rhythms. international line dancing moves beyond the borders defined by quebec-created social line dancing to employ internationally flavoured dance steps and music.it was monday evening at the lachine legion hall and international line dance instructor nathalie blais was putting cotton and fellow participants through their paces to the marc anthony song i need to know.“give me some love,” blais called out to the group as she demonstrated the routine. cotton attends the more advanced line dance classes and when she’s not line dancing, she’s visiting one of the many hip-hop/house studios around town. she’s become accustomed to being the only person over 30 in the class and said her presence is met with grace by the instructors.“dance has become an obsession for me, like it does for so many young dancers. it just happened to me later in life,” cotton said.cotton began to experience debilitating migraines when she was 12 years old. the pain prevented her from pursuing her nascent love of dance, but at age 50, she decided to give it a try and took a jazz-funk class with dale king. it was mind-blowing in more ways than one. the class triggered a fierce migraine, but cotton became determined to both keep on dancing, in pain, and to find a diagnosis. ultimately, it was discovered that a jaw anomaly was causing the pain. it was treated and she has been pain-free for 20 years. dancing up a storm the entire time.“dance is a confidence builder and it gives you a mental workout,” she said.cotton recently created her very first solo and debuted it during the so you think that was dance event at the montreal fringe festival this summer. she repeated the performance at place des festivals in august during the festival mode & design’s fresh 2 death battle and even though she experienced her first onstage blank, she had the confidence to keep on moving until the  choreography fell back into place.keen to share her love of dance, cotton teaches dance to refugee and immigrant claimants at a ymca-run residence downtown.“i call it ‘dance by design,’” she said.and she’s on a waiting list to teach at the west island cancer wellness centre.bringing line dance to a larger community is another of cotton’s goals. she’s teamed up with blais to organize outdoor line dance programs. verdun, lasalle and lachine have had summer dance programs for years, but west island communities have been slower to catch on. cotton successfully pitched the idea to dorval three years ago and ste-anne-de-bellevue joined in for the first time this summer. cotton is hoping to get pointe-claire and beaconsfield involved moving forward.line dancing is blais’ full time job. she adapts her routines to suit all ages and capabilities and has taught people with parkinson’s and people using walkers. as skills improve, the footwork can become quite complex. cotton sings its praises, saying it brings people together and can help break the cycle of loneliness and isolation for so many seniors.for more information, visit www.nathalieblaislinedancing.com.kgreenaway@postmedia.com