There are many images of China in which old men are doing Tai Chi in the park in the morning. While not as popular here, you can find a few old men doing Tai Chi in the parks here in the early hours of the day. But while the men have the mornings, the ladies have claimed the nights.
When the sun goes down in Taiwan, old ladies swarm to the park to get together in groups and do choreographed dances. You heard that right, it's not Tai Chi for these ladies. It's dance, dance, dance! The ladies get in groups of anywhere from five to thirty people to dance a set routine. Sometimes there is a coach upfront (also an old lady) who is teaching them the steps, but for the most part it's just a group of people in rows doing the dance without anybody leading them.
The dances themselves are not very complex. They usually just involve moving your arms, turning around, a few steps in any direction, and some (slow) hip shaking. There seems to be a point to make it nothing where you have to move too quickly or to bend at the waist or knees. Which is actually quite clever when you consider the age of the dancers. Also of note is that most of the dances seem to be able to be performed by anybody. Those who are more capable can do them with more style and vigor, but even if you aren't so nimble you can keep up with what is going on.
I always wonder who choreographs these dances. Perhaps there are some dance classes and one old lady will go to learn the dances and then come to the park and teach all her friends. Or perhaps there are people whose job it is to make up dances for old women and then the ladies pool their money together to get those people to come to the park and teach them. With there being so many people who dance in the park, i'm sure that the demand could support dozens of full-time choreographers.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this is that there are different groups. They have their own area of the park, their own music, and even their own outfits. It really is like a gang. Walking through the park you will see the red shirt ladies over here and the purple shirt ladies over there, and so on. It can also make the park a loud and dangerous place. Each group has their music blasting and with the hordes of dancers you have to be careful or you might get caught with an elbow to the eye.
I always wonder what these groups mean and why somebody would join one group over the other. Unlike gangs, they are very welcoming. It's very common to see random people come up and get into a row and do the dances. I'm assuming they are random people because they don't have the outfits, they don't know the dances, and some of them are even guys. But I've never seen anybody turned away. In fact one friend of mine said that for about a year for her "exercise" she would go to the park and just join up in the back row of one of the groups and do the dance. I say "exercise" because while it's good for seniors, for anybody under fifty it's exercise like saying walking to the corner 7-11 is exercise.
Pictured above are some red shirt ladies. This group is the most prevalent around taipei parks. I was actually super excited to get this picture, because for years I've been talking about these old lady dancing gangs, but I could never get a picture because they only come out at night. I guess it's ok to do it during the day time if you can hog this small area under cover. Because I'm sure by now you've guessed why the dance gangs only come out at night. Yep that's right, even the old ladies are scared of getting a tan.
