As the WNBA season starts, this 71-year-old NJ woman is ready to entertain the crowds

Yvonne Wise, 71, at a practice session for The Timeless Torches, which perform at the Barclays Center during the New York Liberty halftime show. The minimum age requirement for the group is 40.

Yvonne Wise sings the lyrics, “Save a horse, ride a cowboy,” as she swivels her hips in a circle and moves her feet in the repetitious dance routine at the Rahway Senior Center in New Jersey. It’s a small class at the senior center — many of the usual participants are at their classmate’s funeral.

The loss doesn’t stop the seniors from getting rowdy on a rainy Monday morning, especially not Yvonne. She sticks out from the class by dipping her hips low with each step and at one point, getting so low to the ground that her classmates start yelling “Ow, ow! Get it Yvonne!” until the 71-year-old is in a full split in the middle of the senior center gymnasium.

“We all crazy,” said Sharon Boone, Yvonne’s dance classmate at the senior center.

Boone shouts to Yvonne throughout the class, hyping her up, especially for her infamous split. “She’s very flexible. She can do stuff at our age that I don’t think anybody can,” said Boone.

Which is why Yvonne doesn’t contain her dance moves to the senior center. During the WNBA season, Yvonne treks nearly an hour and a half from Rahway to Brooklyn to put her shakes and splits center stage at the New York Liberty halftime show as a dancer for The Timeless Torches — a dance group with a minimum age requirement of 40.

“I wasn’t nervous at all the first time cause I didn’t know what it was about. I wasn’t nervous at the next audition either,” Yvonne said about her first time trying out for The Timeless Torches over 10 years ago.

But with the 2024 WNBA season quickly approaching on May 4, Yvonne is more nervous now than all those years ago. “I know my memory is not what it used to be. Especially short-term memory,” she said.

It’s hard, especially because the routines for the Timeless Torches are way more complicated and exhaustive than the dance classes at the senior center. A typical class at the senior center runs an hour, while a Timeless Torch rehearsal is up to three hours.

The Timeless Torches perform complicated, modern dance routines where Yvonne regularly showcases her infamous forward roll that lands in a split. When it’s game day, dancers must stay until the end, and Yvonne doesn’t start her trek home until about 10 p.m.

That’s not the only sacrifice Yvonne makes to be on the team. She also balances a part-time substitute teaching job and taking care of her 96-year-old mother who struggles with severe dementia. Yvonne watches the deterioration of her mom’s memory while grappling with her own memory loss.

“My mother, she hasn’t called me by my name now for years,” said Yvonne. “It’s been hard and I used to cry a lot. But now I’ve accepted her for what it is.”

Yvonne manages her emotions by keeping busy, which includes her rigorous schedule for The Timeless Torches and substitute teaching even though she’s a retired educator —technically, at least. She also believes that keeping her body moving and being required to memorize dance routines helps keep her memory loss at bay.

“We talked about the practices and how sometimes it was a lot, you know, to be able to keep up with the practice schedule, and her commitment to her sorority, and then her mom being sick,” said Dr. Monica Burton, a longtime friend of Yvonne and the principal at Benjamin Banneker Academy in East Orange, where Yvonne substitute teaches music classes.

But her friend was always positive, and Yvonne still excitedly shows Burton her videos from The Timeless Torch routines, despite her mom’s worsening illness.

“A lot of us have stuff going on in our lives,” said Sari Levine, the dance and exercise teacher at the senior center. “This helps us.”

While Yvonne may sometimes struggle to remember The Timeless Torches’ routines, she is a star at the senior center. Throughout Monday’s class, the senior dancers, both new and old to the class, look to Yvonne’s foot patterns to pick up the routine. Yvonne says she may occasionally struggle with a routine but she likes to be challenged.

“She’s doing all the easy ones,” Yvonne said as the tracks changed. The music picked up pace, and worried looks were plastered on her classmates’ faces. “Now this is more my speed!” Yvonne said excitedly, jumping into the more complicated routine.

Yvonne’s professional dance career started with The Timeless Torches, but her love for dance dates back to her childhood when she watched Shirley Temple on television. In college, she danced with her sorority Delta Sigma Theta at Delaware State.

She became a music teacher right after graduating in 1974. Yvonne said she always tried to incorporate dance into her music lessons as much as she could over her 40-year career.

The Timeless Torches brought new excitement to Yvonne’s life when she first auditioned at 58. She said that every time she goes out on the court to perform, the feeling of adrenaline and her heart pumping never gets old. Hearing the crowd screaming and yelling for them is a feeling she said she can’t even describe.

“Everything’s getting harder for me, but I am committed, and I am determined to do it until I can’t walk,” Yvonne said about dancing for the Timeless Torches. “As long as they take me back I’m going to audition every year until I cannot walk.”

Yvonne hopes to inspire her audience at Barclay’s, especially older people, to stay active. Despite the uncertainty of her ability to memorize routines, Yvonne does not plan on slowing down. Whether it’s her exercise class, dancing at the senior center, or taking Tai Chi classes, she plans to keep moving.