Tina Woods was sitting in a taxi when the dancing bug bit. It was after midnight and she and two friends were heading home from another friend’s 60th birthday party. South-west London rolled past the window. They had had a bit to drink. As they passed Le Fez nightclub, they realised they didn’t want to go home. “We were like: let’s go dancing before we go to bed,” she says.
Woods, then 56, had gone clubbing in her 20s, but on Le Fez’s dancefloor, as her body caught the beat, she had “an epiphany moment”, a shock of pure euphoria: “The joy I felt – the mind, body and soul connection – was like a lightning bolt.” She knew then that “dancing and music were going to be a bigger part of my life than I’d ever thought”.
Woods, who lives in London but grew up in Montreal, Canada, has always been active. She loves travelling, mountain climbing and Zumba. But now she has started clubbing – with friends or with Nick, her husband of nearly 30 years.
“I started to get into the softer end of techno – melodic techno, tech house,” she says. “I loved the beat, the bass line – Afrobeats and a Latin vibe. I realised that my brain was responding to that music in a way that was incredibly energising. It made me feel alive.”
‘I’m finding myself again.’ Tina as her alter ego. Photograph: Marek Misiurewicz/International Institute of Longevity
Woods had studied genetics at Cornell university in Ithaca, New York. Her first job, after moving to London in her early 20s, was as a medical writer for a company that made training films for doctors. She worked in healthcare until she was 53 and is now a consultant specialising in health technology in relation to longevity; she has published a book on how to live longer with AI.
In the joy she felt on the dancefloor, she began to see a connection to her work. “I’m trying to bring scientific rigour and understanding into this environment of dance and the neurochemistry of music to understand what promotes health and wellbeing – and, linked to that, what could delay the ageing process,” she says.
Since she was 56, she has tested her biological age and says she is getting younger. At 60, one test put her at 35. Dancing has brought new, intergenerational friendships, such as with Yukari, an aspiring DJ Woods met on the dancefloor while in Japan at a conference.
However, when she was 59, pain from bunions in her feet reached unbearable levels. The problem was so severe that some of Woods’s toes became dislocated. She decided to undergo surgery. “I was thinking: what’s important in my life? For me, that’s being mobile and energetic.” She knew the surgery would necessitate four to six months of recovery.
“How am I going to cope?” thought Woods, who has trouble relaxing. “But there’s always a positive side, if you look for it. I thought: I’ll learn to mix music.” Woods underwent surgery in December 2023, a week before Christmas – for which her three sons gave her a present of DJ equipment. The learning process was under way.
One night, having recovered her mobility, she and her husband were on their way to a gig in east London when they stopped for a drink at the venue Love Shack. “We kept seeing people coming and going … They showed us this secret room under the railway arches and there’s this huge pulsating party.”
Woods had found the venue for her DJing debut. She discussed it with Yukari. “We were like: ‘Let’s do a gig,’” Woods says. “ Before we knew it, more than 200 people had signed up.”
They called their event Longevity Rave. Woods now DJs once a month; she has DJed in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami and London. The dancefloor is always a mix of ages. “I’m finding myself again, in a funny sort of way. Psychologically, emotionally, sexually. Everything about who I am as a woman,” she says.
She doesn’t plan to stop her consultancy business: “DJing is not a career. It’s more of a calling.” But her world has become “more vivid … more electric … There are lots of successful DJs well into their 60s and 70s. So who knows? I’m just following a path, seeing where it goes.”
Live Longer With AI: How Artificial Intelligence Is Helping Us Extend Our Healthspan and Live Better Too by Tina Woods is published by Packt
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