It’s becoming somewhat of a trend on social media, footage of elderly people dancing like they’re 22 again at festivals. Just two weeks ago Holland’s very own ‘House Opa’ stole the show at Edit Festival in Haarlem. His moves were all over Facebook, and he’s been popping up before after attending other festivals and dance parties regularly. Other colourful characters of age have made equal name for themselves in other places like Berlin and Detroit. Here’s a small testimony to these people, who are showing youngsters that loving and dancing to dance music shouldn’t have an expiration date.
Back in February we reported on ‘Grandma Techno’, aka Patricia Lay-Dorsey (age 72), who has become one of the most regular visitors of Detroit’s Movement Festival. They actually made a mini-documentary about her, and why she loves to go to dance festivals in the first place.
See also: They Call Me Grandma Techno (Video)
Then there’s the story of Johan de Vries (manufacturing date: 1932) whom has built a reputation of sorts as the “House Opa” at Dutch festivals at clubs in and around Amsterdam. This video was taken at Edit festival a few weeks back and became a hit when people started to share Johan’s idiosyncratic dance moves. Johan had professional dancing lessons back in the day, so you can see elements of pretty much every dance your grandparents used to do in his wrinkled stomping feet.
TV N-H interviewed Johan back in 2013 during a beach party (Dutch only).
Someone who is perhaps a bit younger than Johan but who certainly deserves a mention here is Jan Bakker, the 60-something living legend who has become a household name in the Amsterdam scene.
Then there’s Komet Bernhard who’s a well-known senior in the Berlin scene. I actually saw him at Fusion festival last year; there was a queue of Berlin residents who wanted to shake his hand. It looks like he’s out of his brain on drugs, but from what I have heard he dances like this when he’s completely sober (except for the odd sip of Jägermeister, as you can see in the video below).
And as one alert reader of our platform mentioned he also came to fame starring in the video for the remix of Adana Twins ‘Strange’ by Acid Pauli & NU.
