With huge headphones propped over her white hair, Polish DJ and activist Wirginia Szmyt, 85, grooves alongside a drag queen on a float at the Warsaw Pride parade.
DJ Wika, as she is known, is a young-at-heart great-grandmother determined to break down stereotypes.
“Old age is not a disease,” she said, each wrist adorned with a stack of bracelets as colorful as her personality.
Photo: AFP
“This does not mean you have to be a plant and look out the window,” she said.
Through her performances, Wika shows her staunch support for seniors and advocates for gender equality, LGBTQ rights and a more open-minded and accepting Poland.
“I am for unity, for equality, for love, for tolerance, for openness,” she said ahead of her Pride performance in June. “All this allows a person to live joyfully.”
Photo: AFP
After retiring from a career in youth rehabilitation at a correctional facility, Wika began organizing events for senior citizens, designed to “help them adjust to the 21st century.”
What began as a series of educational events, including meetings with faith leaders and politicians, went on to include parties, music, trips to the seaside and celebrations.
“In our country there was no tradition of offering something to elderly people,” she said. “The senior was simply the person who took care of the family.”
Her seniors’ parades, modeled after LGBTQ Pride parades, began in 2013, with the very first one drawing 14,000 participants in Poland’s capital.
“I thought to myself that since there is such a perception of senior citizens — that they are bothersome, just getting in the way, old — then we should make a parade, to show how beautiful they are,” Wika said.
Every year since, similar seniors’ parades have been held in several Polish cities, and DJ Wika’s 26-year-long career in music continues to flourish.
“If we want to fight for our rights, we have to show up,” she said.
DJ Wika has performed at Pride parades, women’s rights festivals and celebrations in cities such as Nice, Frankfurt and Helsinki, but one of her regular gigs is a dance night for seniors at Warsaw’s Mlociny shopping mall.
It is here, amid music that ranges from Latin hits to Eurovision contenders and her country’s own 1980s “disco polo,” that Wika’s vibrant audience comes together for a night of dancing and fun.
“Music fills me with life,” said Wika, adding that her goal is “to bring people together.”
She has built up a loyal following.
Maria Michalak, a nurse in her 60s, made an hour-long metro commute across Warsaw with her husband to attend the Mlociny mall dance.
“Compared to other such events for seniors, this is the best,” she said. “Maybe they should happen even more often.”
Andrzej Jan Kuspik, a 73-year-old pensioner, attends DJ Wika’s sets every month that he can.
“She does this for us,” he said, adding that he was so thankful that he bought Wika flowers for International Women’s Day.
Although her gigs mean regular travel across Poland and abroad, Wika does not plan on stopping anytime soon.
“Every one of us has an inner child,” she said. “If this child wakes up then we can feel younger.”
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