<\/p>\n
The Sunsationals entertain the crowd at a basketball game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Courtesy of the Connecticut Sun<\/p>\n
The Sunsationals entertain the crowd at a basketball game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Courtesy Of The Connecticut Sun<\/p>\n
The Sunsationals entertain the crowd at a basketball game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Courtesy Of The Connecticut Sun<\/p>\n
The Sunsationals entertain the crowd at a basketball game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Courtesy Of The Connecticut Sun<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A former high school basketball player and longtime fan of the Connecticut Sun<\/a>, Carlson\u2019s list also included auditioning for the Sunsationals, the WNBA franchise\u2019s dance troupe for people 50 and over.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cI find that one of the privileges of being over 50 is not caring what anyone thinks,\u201d said Carlson, a 58-year-old from East Haven who works with people with developmental disabilities. \u201cI\u2019m not sure at 30 I would have taken the risk of looking so silly out there.\u201d<\/p>\n Carlson is one of roughly two dozen members of the Sunsationals, whose members have entertained crowds at Mohegan Sun Arena alongside the Sun\u2019s youth and adult dance teams since 2008.<\/p>\n \u201cMy priorities were different,\u201d Karen Aubin, a 72-year-old a retired higher education administrator from Griswold said of when she was in her 30s. \u201cI mean, you\u2019re 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Make CT Insider a preferred source on Google to see more of our journalism when you search.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n 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\u2019s \u2014 and Sunsationals\u2019\u2014 last season in Connecticut. In March, the Sun\u2019s ownership, the Mohegan Tribe, reached a $300 million deal to sell the WNBA franchise<\/a> to the owner of the Houston Rockets, meaning a likely rebrand for the Sun and the end of the Sunsationals in its current form.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<\/p>\n 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 \u201cbeing on a basketball court in a different way, a renewed way.\u201d<\/p>\n Pre-pandemic, the team\u2019s routines blended a variety of styles and genres. \u201cWe can be graceful, and we can shake it,\u201d said Cliff Marks, 74, the team\u2019s first male member. But it\u2019s also serious work. Sunsationals have to audition, and the dances they\u2019ll perform at six home games are the creations of a professional choreographer. The performances themselves are liberating and physically demanding.<\/p>\n Marks, a retiree from Willimantic, once attempted a cartwheel on the court. \u201cThat will never happen again,\u201d he said. Aubin had someone stand on her legs, \u201clike a cheer-type thing,\u201d she said. \u201cWe had to be dexterous.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The group has danced to \u201coldies,\u201d like songs from the musical Hairspray<\/a>, the kind of thumping \u201980s electronic dance hits you might still hear at a wedding and modern hip-hop: Ciara\u2019s \u201c1, 2 Step,\u201d Missy Elliot\u2019s \u201cWork It,\u201d and V.I.C.\u2019s \u201cWobble.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI think people get a big kick out of it,\u201d Aubin said. \u201cLike, \u2018Oh my God, they\u2019re shaking their booty!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Booty-shaking skills don\u2019t guarantee you a spot on the Sunsationals, though it absolutely doesn\u2019t hurt to give it all you\u2019ve got. Most of the members do not have a dance background. Lillian Cook Edwards, the group\u2019s coach and choreographer, looks for dancers with energy and personality \u2014 that special something that makes them sizzle on the court.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone, in some sense, has to be a star,\u201d said Cook Edwards, a former member of the Sun\u2019s Shine Squad, its premiere adult dance group. \u201cYou need to be comfortable on the court, comfortable interacting with fans. A lot of our Sunsational members are also season-ticket holders, so they\u2019re part of the fan community. And once you get on that court, the fans are watching, so you\u2019re kind of like an ambassador for the team.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Grace Bisgyer, the Sun\u2019s 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. \u201cWe can\u2019t control the score on the court, but we can control the energy in the room, no matter who is winning or losing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you dance professionally, there\u2019s sometimes this ticking clock of what a career might look like,\u201d she said. \u201cSeeing the dedication that they put into this process has inspired \u2026 It\u2019s been my motivation to be ready, stay energized and keep working out, so that my career is not done.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Sunsationals entertain the crowd at a basketball game.\u00a0 Courtesy of the Connecticut Sun The Sunsationals entertain the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[247854,99,434],"class_list":["post-632673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-all-ct-sites","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}