‘Talent is Timeless’ Senior Talent Contest Regionals Held at Lincoln Center on UWS

By Carol Tannenhauser

She walked across the stage of Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center slowly and regally, took the microphone and performed a soulful, yet spirited rap. The phrase that stuck with me, punctuating her staccato delivery, referred to “when my people were not free.” The hall was silent, her voice was riveting.

It is no wonder that Thelma Ruffin Thomas, age undisclosed, took first place in the city’s third annual regional senior talent competition, called “Talent is Timeless,” created by the New York City Department for the Aging.

Competitors, who must be 60 and older, come from the city’s network of over 300 older adult centers, a spokesperson from the department told the Rag. “They have competitions within their individual centers, and then the winners of those move on to the regional competition, which is what we are experiencing now,” she said.

In New York City, the regional competitions are held in each of the five boroughs, and it was the Manhattan contest that took place at Lincoln Center on the Upper West Side on Wednesday morning. Nineteen acts took the stage. Some featured a lone performer; others competed as a group.

A solo dance:

A dance troupe from Chinatown:

A soloist:

“You’re Going to Get Old If You’re Lucky,” sang a singer-songwriter:

A standup comic, wearing a t-shirt featuring his bird, told the audience his bird wears one of him.

The top three finishers on Wednesday will move on to the final competition to be held October 16th at the United Palace Theater in Washington Heights. They are:

1st place: Thelma Ruffin Thomas from Penn South (Chelsea) NORC  (Naturally Occurring Retirement Community) — Performing: “Thelma’s Rap”
2nd place: Rosemarie Hameed from Good Companions (Henry Street) OAC (Older Adult Center) — Singing: “At Last”
3rd place: Paulina Hiraldo from STAR OAC (Washington Heights) — Singing: “Ya Te Olvide”

This year, the contest is “evolving and innovating,” a spokesperson for the Department for the Aging told the Rag. A performer chosen by the audience through smartphone voting was also offered the opportunity to move on to the finals. He is comedian Zygy Susser from Co-op Village NORC on Grand Street. I sat near his wife, who said Susser had a lot of fans in the house. The same seemed to be true of all the performers. The audience was filled with groups of supporters cheering for their home team; Alice Tully Hall was packed. The mood was joyous.

“Arts, creativity, and movement are essential to healthy aging,” wrote Department for the Aging Commissioner Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez in an email to the Rag. “Talent is Timeless underscores that talent is also ageless. NYC Aging’s annual competition offers a platform for older New Yorkers to showcase their skills at every level. For the third year in a row, participants have shown that artistic expression has no time limit.”

A spokesperson for the department added that this event is a potent way to combat ageism, which often portrays older people as declining or diminished. “This is our way of proving that talent and creativity have no age,” she said.

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