Never Too Old to Dance

Susan Avery ’90 MS made her career as a journalist, but she always dreamed of being a dancer too. In 2017 she learned that the Brooklyn Cyclones, a New York Mets minor-league team, was starting a dance team, so she took a chance and auditioned. She was shocked when, at age 57, she earned a spot, dancing alongside teammates who were in their teens and 20s. 

Avery remembers the joy she felt when she took the field for the first time on opening day in Coney Island, dancing to a Beach Boys song. But when a video of the performance was posted online, she faced an onslaught of cyberbullying.  

“Some people took to Facebook and said some pretty horrible things: ‘What is this old bag doing on the team? We don’t need her. She should just stay home,’” Avery recalls. “I called the Cyclones the next day and apologized for the shame I was bringing them. They said, ‘We hired you. We love you. Keep your head held high and continue dancing.’ And so I did.”  

Avery persevered as the online harassment continued. But at the end of the season, she turned in her costume and decided that her dancing days were over.   

Then, at dinner one night, her daughter Natalie Avery ’17 jokingly suggested that she start an “old-person dance team.”  

Susan Avery took the idea and ran with it. She called up Heather Van Arsdel, a friend and former dance captain of the New York Knicks City Dancers, who agreed to help make the idea a reality. They put ads in Playbill and Backstage publicizing their first audition. Soon they had 16 dancers, and together they formed the Pacemakers Dance Team.  

Today the Pacemakers are 50 members strong, with ages ranging from 60 to 85. The goal of the group is to fight stigma around aging in the U.S. and around the world, says Avery, whose niece, Elyssa Burg Warner ’03, does graphic design, marketing and strategic business planning for the Pacemakers. The dancers proudly wear their birth years on the back of their jerseys, to “scream our ages as loud as we can.”    

“There’s no shame in aging,’” she adds. “It’s a badge of honor. You want to get old! What’s the alternative, right?”   

In 2019 the Brooklyn Cyclones invited the Pacemakers to perform during a game. Avery was apprehensive but accepted the gig.  

“I was so scared,” Avery says. “When we were waiting in the tunnel, I had a brain blip and couldn’t remember the choreography.” But her teammates reminded her to relax and have fun with it. And to her surprise, the Pacemakers were a hit, receiving a standing ovation as they ran off the field.  

Since then, the Pacemakers have performed at the 2023 movie premiere of 80 for Brady in New York City, the 2024 American Physical Therapy Association conference in Boston and even the 2022 WNBA championship finale at Mohegan Sun Arena in Montville, Conn. Their rehearsal clips, music videos and dance challenges have garnered millions of views on social media. And there are Pacemakers fans around the world — in October the team traveled to Austria to perform and teach dance workshops.  

“Everybody loves the Pacemakers,” says Avery. “We bring the dance joy.”