LIVY ALLEYNE LITERALLY waltzed his way into the heart of his wife and dance partner Betty Alleyne.
“We love each other and that’s the main thing. Once we do dance we are [good],” she said.
Not only do they share the track as senior athletes, they also share the dance floor and office as co-owners of Livy and Betty’s Dance Academy which they founded in 1999.
The couple admitted that life has changed a lot since their two sons, 24-year-old Andre and 18-year-old Shane, moved out to pursue degrees in engineering (Shane) and medicine (Andre).
Betty, 50-plus years young, said that dance has been the family’s glue over time and still continues to be.
“Things are a lot different now, but back then I would do the weekend classes and run up and down with them to and from their extracurricular activities,” she said.
Livy, 60 years old, said that they are now readjusting. He “lives to dance” after starting out as a student, then becoming a teacher.
“I live for dance. I was a student and then a teacher,” the carpenter added.
When asked if they were interested in each other since the first dance, Livy said that was not the case since he had a girlfriend at that time.
“But I took her to dance and she never liked it,” he said. “She never went back.”
He knew then she was not the one.
An evidently quieter Betty, who sat nearby on the couch, agreed that dance helped them to keep things together.
“Betty is really the person who keeps things together – she is the glue – a real family woman,” Livy said, while looking on at his dance friend and wife with affection. The pair met at an Edinburgh Dance Group session at the then Garrison School 27 years ago.
The past student of The St Leonard’s Girls’ School said that if not dance she would have loved to pursue teaching, while Livy, a joker at times, said that he would have spent his days liming.
The past student of The Lodge School said that he was proud though to represent Barbados as a senior distance athlete.
The active and sports-type family spoke from their Kingsland, Christ Church home.
Turning her attention to her hubby, she said; “I learnt a lot from Livy over the years. He is so organised and it changed the way I looked at him over time. I think of all the other things that we can do.”
Though both admitted that they would like their boys to carry on their family business, Betty said that she came to the realisation that everyone had their own choices to make. They have held their classes at the Deighton Griffith Secondary School and the Cuthbert Moore Primary School for over the past 10 years.
As the wind blew through the house, Livy rested back in his chair as he spoke of his dance partner whom he shares the waltz with.
“I love that my wife could dress up each time . . . . We tend to be dressers,” he said.
Back in 2001 they started two competitions on home soil – Stars Of The Future and Legends Of The Floor. The dance school has won numerous awards and medals and in 2014 Shane and Tiffani Lynch won Latin gold at ISTD grand finals in Blackpool, England, and also became world champions in Paris the same year
Betty said that she wanted the school’s success to be known locally and overseas.
“When our dancers go overseas people talk about their training and so forth,” she said.
“Our names are not on the lips of people all over the world but it needs to be there. They need to hear about our local dancers – our own needs to hear of the talent around them.” (MR)
