Wearing huge headphones on her white hair, Polish DJ and activist Wirginia Szmyt, 85, dances next to a drag queen on a float during the pride parade in Warsaw.

DJ Vika, as she is called, is a young-at-heart great-grandmother determined to break stereotypes.

“Old age is not a disease,” she said, wearing a stack of bracelets on each wrist that were as colorful as her personality.

“This doesn’t mean you have to be a plant and look out the window,” she told AFP.

Through her performances, Vika shows that she supports the elderly and that she is committed to 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 makes a person able to live joyfully.”

– LGBTQ inspired –

After ending her career in juvenile probation at a correctional facility, Vika began organizing events for seniors, aimed at “helping them adapt to the 21st century.”

What began as a series of educational events, including meetings with religious leaders and politicians, later included parties, music, trips to the seaside and celebrations.

“In our country there was no tradition of offering anything to the elderly,” she said.

“The senior was simply the one who took care of the family.”

Her senior parades, modeled on LGBTQ pride parades, began in 2013, with the very first parade drawing 14,000 participants in the Polish capital.

“I thought to myself that since there is such an image of older people, that they are annoying, that they are just in the way, that we should organize a parade to show how beautiful they are,” Vika said.

Since then, similar senior parades have been held in various Polish cities every year and DJ Vika’s 26-year career in music continues to flourish.

“If we want to fight for our rights, we have to show up,” she said.

– ‘She does this for us’ –

DJ Vika has performed at pride parades, women’s rights festivals and festivities in cities such as Nice, Frankfurt and Helsinki, but one of her regular gigs is a dance night for seniors at the Mlociny shopping centre in Warsaw.

Here, amid music ranging from Latin American hits to Eurovision candidates and the venue’s own ’80s disco polo’, Vika’s enthusiastic audience gathers for an evening of dancing and fun.

“Music fills me with life,” Vika said, adding that her goal was “to bring people together.”

She has built up a loyal following.

Maria Michalak, a nurse in her sixties, traveled with her husband for an hour by metro across Warsaw to attend the dance party in the Mlociny shopping center.

“Compared to other senior events, this is the best,” she said. “Maybe they should happen more often.”

Andrzej Jan Kuspik, a 73-year-old retiree, visits DJ Vika’s sets every month if he can.

“She does this for us,” he said, adding that he was so grateful that he had bought Vika flowers for International Women’s Day.

Although Vika regularly travels around Poland and abroad for her performances, she has no plans to stop anytime soon.

“Each of us has an inner child,” she said.

“When this child wakes up, we can feel younger.”

str/amj/bc