The Sunsationals entertain the crowd at a basketball game.
Courtesy of the Connecticut Sun
The Sunsationals entertain the crowd at a basketball game.
Courtesy Of The Connecticut Sun
The Sunsationals entertain the crowd at a basketball game.
Courtesy Of The Connecticut Sun
The Sunsationals entertain the crowd at a basketball game.
Courtesy Of The Connecticut Sun
After her daughter left for college, Robin Carlson began tackling various items on her bucket list: travel, earn a doctoral degree, take up tap dancing, try out pickleball.
A former high school basketball player and longtime fan of the Connecticut Sun, Carlson’s list also included auditioning for the Sunsationals, the WNBA franchise’s dance troupe for people 50 and over.
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“I find that one of the privileges of being over 50 is not caring what anyone thinks,” said Carlson, a 58-year-old from East Haven who works with people with developmental disabilities. “I’m not sure at 30 I would have taken the risk of looking so silly out there.”
Carlson is one of roughly two dozen members of the Sunsationals, whose members have entertained crowds at Mohegan Sun Arena alongside the Sun’s youth and adult dance teams since 2008.
“My priorities were different,” Karen Aubin, a 72-year-old a retired higher education administrator from Griswold said of when she was in her 30s. “I mean, you’re raising a family and so forth, working full time, and all that other stuff, whereas now, I think this is so wonderful. I love to dance. The crazier it is, the more I like it.”
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After taking an extended pandemic hiatus beginning in 2020, the Sunsationals returned for one game last season. The 50-plus dance troupe is planning a full comeback in 2026, which may be the Sun’s — and Sunsationals’— last season in Connecticut. In March, the Sun’s ownership, the Mohegan Tribe, reached a $300 million deal to sell the WNBA franchise to the owner of the Houston Rockets, meaning a likely rebrand for the Sun and the end of the Sunsationals in its current form.
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But for the time being, the dancers are focused on making the most of this season. Carlson, a rookie Sunsationals member, looks forward to simply “being on a basketball court in a different way, a renewed way.”
Pre-pandemic, the team’s routines blended a variety of styles and genres. “We can be graceful, and we can shake it,” said Cliff Marks, 74, the team’s first male member. But it’s also serious work. Sunsationals have to audition, and the dances they’ll perform at six home games are the creations of a professional choreographer. The performances themselves are liberating and physically demanding.
Marks, a retiree from Willimantic, once attempted a cartwheel on the court. “That will never happen again,” he said. Aubin had someone stand on her legs, “like a cheer-type thing,” she said. “We had to be dexterous.”
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The group has danced to “oldies,” like songs from the musical Hairspray, the kind of thumping ’80s electronic dance hits you might still hear at a wedding and modern hip-hop: Ciara’s “1, 2 Step,” Missy Elliot’s “Work It,” and V.I.C.’s “Wobble.”
“I think people get a big kick out of it,” Aubin said. “Like, ‘Oh my God, they’re shaking their booty!’”
Booty-shaking skills don’t guarantee you a spot on the Sunsationals, though it absolutely doesn’t hurt to give it all you’ve got. Most of the members do not have a dance background. Lillian Cook Edwards, the group’s coach and choreographer, looks for dancers with energy and personality — that special something that makes them sizzle on the court.
“Everyone, in some sense, has to be a star,” said Cook Edwards, a former member of the Sun’s Shine Squad, its premiere adult dance group. “You need to be comfortable on the court, comfortable interacting with fans. A lot of our Sunsational members are also season-ticket holders, so they’re part of the fan community. And once you get on that court, the fans are watching, so you’re kind of like an ambassador for the team.”
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Grace Bisgyer, the Sun’s event presentation manager and former member of both the Sunbursts youth troupe and the Shine Squad, said the dance interludes are often the only predictable elements of game day. “We can’t control the score on the court, but we can control the energy in the room, no matter who is winning or losing,” she said.
As someone who is currently 30, Cook Edwards loves to see dancers be willing to take risks and reinvent themselves into their 50s, 60s and 70s.
“When you dance professionally, there’s sometimes this ticking clock of what a career might look like,” she said. “Seeing the dedication that they put into this process has inspired … It’s been my motivation to be ready, stay energized and keep working out, so that my career is not done.”
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