While you were yelling the count down for the New Year 2005 on Broadway in New York, Mrs. Yoshiko Koarai was praying at the Inagi Shrine in her local town - for her family's good health, glory, and ….. that she could go to Las Vegas one day. This was her new year's resolution to God following her work on stage for New Year's Eve TV program that marked after highest audience rating record of 81% in Japan.

It was the New Year's Eve for the year 2005 that she was performing as one of the back dancers along with seventeen other Oba-siennes while Kiyoshi Hikawa, a young Japanese idol singer, sang his best selling song of the year 2004.

The team "Oba-Sienne", named after "Parisienne" is a professional dancing team which consists of ladies, the average age being fifty-five years old. The oldest member is seventy-seven years old. Yes, the Japanese word "Oba-san" originally means middle age women or old lady such as a housewife and now, implies more like lacking sensitivity, attention except herself, therefore Oba-sienne clearly defines something like old ladies with the sense of Parisienne.

"I lost my husband in an accident eleven years ago, and it took me four years until I could talk about him without tears. If my husband were alive, I would not be in the team." The fifty-five-year-old Oba-sienne, a friend of Yoshiko, continues with a big smile, "The team is really fun for me and self satisfying. It dramatically changed my life style. I never used to put on makeup except for my coming of age ceremony and my wedding day, but, our Oba-sienne changes even my hair color dyeing with makeup."

Led by Mr. Takashi Hoshino, a professional dancer who started his career in Las Vegas in 1959, the team Oba-sienne practices as a team lesson at least two times a week.

Mrs. Hisayo Okuyama was a typical Japanese householder, having two girls and one boy with a busy daily life taking care of her kids and parents-in-law for thirty years. But one day when she had turned sixty, she realized that there were no kids in the house and that only her husband and she were sitting in the living room in silence. They talked over and agreed that they would enjoy the rest of their lives doing what they want to do while of course maintaining good health.

That is how she began taking ballroom dance lessons, hoping this will keep her in good health till the age of seventy.

While she was sitting in a hair salon reading a magazine, she came across the article of Oba-sienne. The coiffeur, who chatted with her, knew her interest in dancing, encouraged her to send a postal card for an interview of becoming an Oba-sienne.

"Six years in the team of Oba-sienne went by so fast, really in a flash", she looks back at the time she was a member of the dancing team, "everyone was striving for the same goal. It was encouraging and the feeling of accomplishment was really a great joy for me."

She, however, has moved onto the next challenge - improving her skills more and doing beautiful performance in the ball room. Two or three times a week, after her part time job at a chiropractor, she runs to her lesson.

A few years ago, Ms. Hisayo Okuyama saw the dance demonstration of a ninety-years old lady who suffered from a serious osteoporosis but started floor dancing at the age of seventy. She made her next pledge to, "I will be like her and keep doing my best."

There is something romantic about this pursuit of knowing exactly where elder people are enjoying their lives.