Watch the moving moment a former ballerina with Alzheimer’s remembers dancing to Swan Lake

A video of a former ballerina with Alzheimer’s disease has taken the internet by storm, as she remembers the choreography she danced to decades ago when she hears the music.

The clip shows Marta C Gonzalez, who passed away in 2019, listening to Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, which she danced to in her youth. In the 1960s, Ms Gonzalez was a prima ballerina with the New York Ballet.

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‘A ballerina will always be a ballerina’

The moment was shared by the Asociacion Musica para Despertar - a Spanish charity which uses the music from dementia patients’ lives to improve their mood and memory.

In the video, Ms Gonzalez listens to the music through a pair of headphones. She can be seen replicating the choreography she knew from her time as a ballerina in the 1960s.

After she has completed the performance, Ms Gonzalez is met with applause from the care home, and is comforted by a carer after saying that the music and the dancing has made her “emotional.”

The charity shared the video on Facebook, writing, “A ballerina will always be a ballerina.”

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After the video clip took the internet by storm, the charity shared it on Facebook again, writing, “We’ve managed to get the whole planet dancing and feeling!

“Tears of excitement and a beautiful tribute to Marta Gonzalez, a wonderful artist who gave us these moments that we will never forget.

“Millions of people around the world have already seen [the video], thank you for your excitement!”

‘A well deserved recognition’

Actor Antonio Banderas shared the clip on social media, writing that he hoped that the video would serve as “a well deserved recognition of [Gonzalez’s] art and her passion.”

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Actor Jennifer Garner also shared the video, writing, “Our innate connection to music, movement, to the arts, is beautiful.

“This former ballerina’s sense memory of Swan Lake - just does me in, it’s so lovely. Thank you to everyone in the fight against Alzheimer’s.”

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