When Betsy Walkup entered that dance audition in 2007, she had an edge: She had been taking classes for about a year - and she was younger than most of the people trying out.
I got into hip-hop when I turned 60," says the kindergarten teacher from Bronxville. "I discovered that I loved it and that it was genuine, so I took a class every Saturday at New York Sports Club in Manhattan, on Broadway."
The folks in those Saturday classes called her "Betty," not Betsy, so that became her hip-hop persona, a character she'd play, a woman who could shake things that the kindergarten teacher would keep still.
Betsy would use an inside voice; Betty was as wild as the street.
Both are about to become larger than life, featured in the new documentary "Gotta Dance," by Bedford filmmaker Dori Berinstein. It gets its New York theatrical release Friday at the Beekman Theatre in Manhattan.
The film opens with a quote from the great theatrical impresario Florenz Ziegfeld: "Age doesn't matter unless you are a cheese."
It's the central theme of "Gotta Dance," a lively, fast-paced film that follows the inaugural season of the New Jersey Nets NETSational Senior Hip-Hop Dance Team, a dozen women and one man who performed at six games in the 2007 season.
Berinstein captures it all - from auditions to selection to rehearsals, rehearsals and more rehearsals - building to that first halftime performance when the NETSational Seniors caused, well, a sensation in front of 20,000 basketball fans.
At an age when some of their friends might be getting fitted for artificial hips, the 13 dancers were out there, center court, doing hip-hop.
Talk about defying gravity.
Berinstein's cameras continue to roll after that first show, following the team through the wave of media requests and some hiccups caused by their newfound success.
