Residents of the Julia Wallace Retirement Village in New Zealand have become the latest internet sensation after their shot-for-shot video recreation of Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off music video went viral.
The 50 residents of the village spent a week learning the words and moves and their efforts have been rewarded with upwards of 50,000 views online.[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"content_original","fid":"97912","attributes":{"class":"media-image"}}]]
"Just because we’re in a retirement village doesn’t mean we can't have fun," said 72-year-old Margaret Gregory, who was cast as Swift in the video.
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"We still have life and energy, and sometimes I feel I do more now than when I was younger because I have more time."
The footage mimics the original Shake It Off video, including costumes handcrafted by a village resident, dance moves and props.
Julia Wallace sales advertiser Chrissy Hoys told Stuff magazine it was great to see the residents so enthusiastic about the project.
She added that the perception of a rest home being a place where people sat in chairs all day long was outdated and by creating videos like these, which show pensioners being active and having fun, they were challenging the misconceptions.
The group also released a making-of video which shows some behind-the-scenes cuts as well as out-takes.[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"content_original","fid":"97910","attributes":{"class":"media-image"}}]]
The Swift video is not the first attention-grabbing outing for the residents of Julia Wallace, notes The Guardian.
They produced a nude calendar to raise funds for the Red Cross in 2015 while the year before, their sister village in Christchurch did a flash mob rendition of Pharrell Williams’s Happy at the local shopping centre.
Tags: Taylor Swift, New Zealand
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