Dancing nana the next Susan Boyle? (+ video)

Tauranga granny Melva Cummins has been invited to star in a music video for The Brow Horn Orchestra in Australia after her funky moves became a YouTube hit. Photo / Joel Ford/Bay of Plenty Times

A Tauranga granny caught on film dancing has become a YouTube sensation.

Melva Cummins isn't your usual 82-year-old grandmother. She loves the Crusty Demons, gets a kick out of watching kids skateboard and two years ago went skydiving.

Now Mrs Cummins can add "dance sensation" to her list of achievements after attending the Stretch Festival in Mandurah while visiting friends in Perth recently.

Unbeknown to Mrs Cummins, her dancing at the event was recorded by Australian music management company JumpClimb, which has spent the past two weeks trying to find Mrs Cummins and invite her to star in a music video for The Brow Horn Orchestra. JumpClimb uploaded the video to online video sharing website YouTube and set up a Facebook page in an attempt to find her.

On the Facebook page, JumpClimb's company director Paul Fletcher wrote: "She lit up our lives with her agility and grace and stunned us with hipster moves that are usually only for those with fully functioning hips. And then, in the blink of an eye, she was gone."

Earlier this week Mrs Cummins' friends in Perth realised they knew who the dancing nana was and contacted the company.

Since then she has been fielding calls from Australian media.

An article on her appeared in the West Australian newspaper and yesterday morning she was interviewed by an Australian radio station.

JumpClimb is currently looking for sponsors to fly Mrs Cummins to Australia to feature her in a music video.

"I dance because I love to dance and I can't believe all this has happened. I'm absolutely blown away with it all. I could be the next Susan Boyle," she said.

Mrs Cummins and her husband used to dance at the Tauranga Senior Citizens Club. After he died, Mrs Cummins took up clogging, a form of tapdance and line dancing. "I just went for my life because I can't sit down, I just can't help it. I often thought I could have been a professional dancer because I reckon I was quite good."

While she isn't prancing around her Otumoetai home, Mrs Cummins works in her garden, spends time with her friends and goes for walks.

Once a week she helps a young mother of three by folding her washing.

"My friends always ask how do I have time for it all but I like to keep busy," she said.

"I'm still in good health, my back's fine, my knees are okay. Dancing is who I am and what I do."