Ballet Rambert's Sara Luzita, 100, still dancing at Ely care home
- Published
A former Ballet Rambert dancer has shown fellow care home residents a few moves at the age of 100.
Sara Lemkow (nee Luzita) toured Europe, performed in the West End and featured in films including the original 1952 Moulin Rouge.
On Saturday, she demonstrated flamenco dancing in front of residents during an exercise class at The Orchards in Ely, Cambridgeshire.
Her daughter said "joie de vivre" kept her mother "young at heart".
Ms Lemkow was born in Hanley, Staffordshire, before growing up in Brighton in East Sussex.
She said her mother encouraged her to dance from the age of four, before she trained in London, and then specialised in traditional Spanish and flamenco dancing.
She toured with the prestigious Ballet Rambert, since renamed the Rambert Dance Company, and among her film credits is performing as the can can dancer in the yellow dress, external in John Huston's Moulin Rouge.
She married Norwegian actor Tutte Lemkow - who played the Fiddler in the 1971 film musical Fiddler on the Roof - and she became an antiques dealer in London following her dancing career.
She still has her wooden castanets from about 80 years ago and can still, just about, raise her leg to her head.
"Once a boy walked up and said 'you can't lift your leg up to your head' and I said 'I can' and I did," she remembered.
Rachel Peacock said it "brought a lump to my throat" when the castanets were put in Sara's hand and she started playing them along to the flamenco music.
"She's still got it... the arm-ography, timing and her charisma," she said.
"I think her determination, joie de vivre and sense of humour have kept her young at heart.
"She said to me once 'never go grey'."
Find BBC News: East of England on Facebook, external, Instagram, external and Twitter, external. If you have a story suggestion email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk, external
- Published31 March 2023
- Published17 February 2023
- Published26 September 2022
- Published6 September 2022