A home for ever-dancing souls: Sherry Zunker brings retired dancers in Chicago back to class.

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"You don't dance anymore. Nobody prepares you for what that feels like," says retired Hubbard Street dancer Cheryl Mann. "You don't have your community. You don't see 20 people you're used to seeing every day. All of a sudden you're by yourself."

Enter Sherry Zunker, vivacious veteran dancer who refuses to take retirement lying down. Zunker, former co-artistic director of River North Chicago Dance Company, danced with Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago, Chicago Repertory Dance Ensemble, Bob Fosse's "Dancin," and numerous touring shows before retiring from the stage in 2001 to choreograph and direct. "Finally, I just said, That's it! We're going to start a class because I want to put us in a better mood!"

In March, 2008, she invited 20 former colleagues, including Mann, to a jazz dance class she would initially teach for free. The Mature Dancers' Project was born.

"I wanted to give the kind of class I want to take," Zunker says, "that my body can do, with music for age 40 on--not a class that plays pop music for a 20-year-old--everything that suits the sensibilities of who I am as an adult. I want to be healthy, I want to feel good, but I don't want to be 20 years old. I want to be 48, and I want to love everything that I've become."

"There's nothing like dance," says class member Mark Gomez, 45, who found space for the weekly class at Chicago's West Loop Athletic Club where he is a personal trainer and Pilates instructor, "absolutely nothing--running, Pilates, yoga, personal training--that gives you that connection to your body, the movement and music."

High energy explodes into the gym one recent Sunday as the dancers greet each other with hugs, whoops and laughter. Enthusiastic chatter fills the room as they slip dance bags off their shoulders and peel off sweatshirts. The class is as much a social event as an 'artistic refuge for these retired professional dancers.

"Okay you guys," Zunker cajoles, quieting the talk. She begins with luxurious, slow elongations of the spine, bringing smiles to some faces and grimaces to others. "I'm very impressed with how many of you can do a grand plie," she jokes.

"Once a week, honey, once a week" quips Kenny Ingrain, 45, now a director/choreographer who is about to tour as singer/swing in the Taipei Taiwan company production of The Lion King.

Lyrical arms, open-chest suspensions, and breath impulse characterize the plies, tendus, degages, and grande battements of a Limonesque center-barre. "It could be 90 degrees, or it could be 45. I'm not going to let anybody go over 90," Zunker teases.

Center-floor begins with "something moving and sweepy--no technique yet," she says. But, of course, it's full of technique: a balance sequence with turns, off-center tombes, breathy extensions. Some dancers add beats to a jazzy petit allegro that alternates jetes with bouncy runs. One dancer grips his butt in mock pain.

Class builds to a dramatic climax in a complex combination infused with Zunker's sensual, playful jazz style. The dancers pull out all the stops, each adding an individual signature. Spontaneous applause erupts.

"The common thread here is everyone is really passionate about dance, and all of us have had to say goodbye, to a certain extent," says Julie Kaplan, 51, formerly of Hubbard Street and a co-founder of River North. "The Mature Dancers' Project challenges the whole culture of dance." Kaplan, now a mother, teaches at The Ruth Page Foundation. "It has been a youth culture," she says. "We all knew that as we grew up in it. But this is showing it doesn't need to be."

"It's more than a dance class. You're amongst your tribe," says retired commercial dancer Tony Savino, 48, who is now in sales for a film and production company. "We all witnessed each other as young men and women, so this class is a part of our growing up. We not only danced and took class together, we were with each other at different stages of our lives."

"When you feel your career coming to an end," laments Jeff Hancock, 41, formerly of River North, "you have to ask, Am I gonna get to move like this again?"

Savino answers a resounding, yes. "We seasoned dancers are lucky now to have a place to call home for our somewhat weary bodies but ever-dancing souls."