Guernsey Press

Former ballerina with dementia remembers Swan Lake choreography

Marta C Gonzalez listened to Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake decades after performing the ballet.

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A moving video of a former ballerina with dementia remembering the choreography she danced to decades ago has gone viral after being shared by a charity.

The clip shows Marta C Gonzalez, who died in 2019, listening to Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake – which she had danced to in her youth.

Ms Gonzalez had been a prima ballerina with the New York Ballet in the 1960s.

In the video Ms Gonzalez listens to the music through a pair of headphones and soon begins to replicate the choreography she danced to all those years ago.

Actor Antonio Banderas shared the clip on Facebook, writing that he hoped the video would serve as “a well-deserved recognition of her art and her passion”.

She is then comforted as she tells a care worker she is “emotional”,

“The power of music is immeasurable,” the charity said. “May she rest in peace.”

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