We were surprised this week to experience simultaneous impulses to grieve and applaud. News of Ginny Lathrop’s death last Saturday at the age of 94 left us with an overwhelming sense of great loss and deep appreciation. She had given us, quite literally, the performance of a lifetime. It was a performance we wished would never end. Now that it has, we are keenly aware that we were witness to something rare and beautiful.

Ginny Lathrop’s dancing career, which tapped, ball changed, and feather stepped across 80 years, was mythic. By the time she started the Lathrop School of Dance in Edmond Town Hall in 1951 with her husband and dance partner, Mack, who died in 1985, Ginny Lathrop was a vaudeville circuit veteran with enough show business stories to keep friends and acquaintances entertained and impressed for the rest of her life. Though they were known as quintessential vaudeville performers in their time, Mack and Ginny Lathrop were first and foremost dancers. And while the show may have leaned heavily on the artifice of glitter, greasepaint, and dramatic lighting, the dance at the center of every one of their shows was completely and utterly authentic — a remarkable demonstration of how the human spirit can intersect with discipline and artistry to take flight.

In setting up their dance school in Newtown, the Lathrops dedicated themselves to sharing their talent — not just in the sense of letting people admire their talent. They understood that if there is one thing more exhilarating than watching skilled dancers, it is experiencing first-hand the joy of dancing. As Ginny Lathrop advised innumerable students, “If you are going to dance, you should do it for the joy of it.” Thousands of Newtown children took her up on the offer, even though they were destined to become far more accomplished chemists, or teachers, or accountants than dancers. They learned about being joyful in the face of a challenge, which distinguishes professionals of every stripe no matter how light they are on their feet.

As much as we never tired of watching Ginny Lathrop, whether she was dancing, or greeting friends, or raising her glass of champagne in honor of something minor or momentous, as she often did, we wish that we could have seen the world just once as she saw it, through those big picture-window glasses of hers. To Ginny Lathrop, the world was as dull or as exciting as one chose to make it. So when an hour, day, or week turned gray, tedious, even grim, she never waited for someone else to come along to turn the tide of events. She summoned up the impertinence to do something joyous. A spirit like that travels 94 years on sheer momentum.

We each have our own unique choreography that carries us through life. Ginny Lathrop showed us that we can drag our feet and scuff up a cloud that obscures the way, or we can get up and really dance. The dancer’s choice can lead to some surprising and remarkable experiences, like applauding even in our deepest grief.