Dance instructor Barbara Horton Symonds was the type of little girl who couldn't sit still. As an 83-year-old, she's still much the same.

Since Ms Symonds, originally from Cooks Hill, Somerset, has spent the last 50 years teaching dance in Ohio, winning the Bermuda Arts Council Lifetime Achievement Award came as a surprise.

“I have been out of this country for so long, said Ms Symonds. I come home every year, but I thought they had forsaken me.

“When Koshea (a relative) called, I didn't even know anything about the Bermuda Arts Council. They didn't have anything like that 50 years ago in Bermuda. I was very happy.

“It is an unbelievable piece of luck. Usually, when youve been away for so long, people don't bother with you anymore; but then the sun shined.”

Growing up, she was one of four girls and three boys born to Josephine and James Horton. Her passion for dance started when she was a young woman.

After classes at Berkeley Institute, she would sneak out to popular hangouts like the Angels Grotto to dance Calypso while, in her words, people like the Talbot Brothers played back-up.

In 1942, with the encouragement of her brother, Jimmy Horton, she started a dance studio giving classes in modern dance out of an empty, re-outfitted stable in Somerset.

She was the first person in Bermuda to train girls to be majorettes.

“In those days we were doing things for five shillings and ten shillings,”she said. “We were just glad to have some money to give to our parents.”

In 1952 she enrolled at Wilberforce University, in Wilberforce, Ohio, one of the oldest African-American universities in the United States, to study dance and physical education.

Today, it is a sister university to Central State University. After graduating, she returned home to Bermuda, but her family urged her to go back to school.

“My brother, Jimmy Horton said, sister, you're not going to stay on this island. There's nothing here for you. Youre going to get your Master's degree. Which I did.

“He was looking out for me. He was a talented person. Not by himself, but he built the Somerset Cricket Club many years ago.”

She went back and studied at Teacher's College, Columbia University in New York, and then returned to Bermuda again

One day, after her graduation, a long distance call came through for her, which was no small thing in those days.

“If you got a long distance call you had to go to Hamilton the best way you could to accept it,” she said. It turned out to be the president of the alumni association at Central State University. She asked me if I wanted to go back to the US to teach.

“I had to sit down after that. It was unbelievable to be away a couple of years ago and be called back to teach.

When I was here teaching it was still pounds and shillings and pence. Teachers then were making something like 35 to 40 a month.

Where are you going to go with that? When the opportunity came to teach abroad, I lit up like a butterfly because it meant I could help my family.

She became a dance instructor at Central State University, specialising in afro-rhythmic, jazz, abstraction, religious, creative dance for children, social and folk dance. But she did a lot more than teach dance.

The things I have done at Central, she said with a laugh. At first I was a teacher, but I upgraded myself to a professor. I taught physical education, swimming, basketball, hockey. I had to learn those sports and then teach them.

On the outside of that I choreographed for the marching bands. I had a group of girls who were majorettes.

But what she is best remembered for at Central State University is starting a small dancing group called Les Danseurs in 1957.

The group performed for most university sponsored affairs: convocations, coronation balls, basket ball games, and alumni conventions. It is still in operation at the university under a different name.

Ms Symonds was also active outside the university.

She conducted dance workshops at the Cleveland Dance Association, the New York City Dance Conference, National YMCAs and West Virginia Conferences. She attended dance workshops across the country to enhance her dance experience and choreographic skill.

The growth of dance has been inhibited by a lack of driven and motivated dance teachers, said Ms Symonds. In particular, there was a great need for black teachers in dance. Dance is a necessity, and a part of everyday culture.

Man has danced for generations. Movement education is a must. Look around us in the era fat, weak obese. Why? It is a problem.

Schools have a great responsibility to have dance as a part of their physical education curriculum. There is a great need in the educational field to improve dance, it is important to our modern society.

Ms Symonds, who was known to her students as mom, retired in 1988 after 36 years, but she only fractionally slowed down. Until 2004, she regularly taught dance to little children at a nearby church.

It worked out beautifully as it gave me a chance to work with children who otherwise wouldnt have had the opportunity to study dance, she said. Unfortunately I had to stop teaching the little ones. The doctor said if you want to live a little longer, you need to leave it alone.

Shortly before coming to Bermuda to accept the award, she went on a cruise to the Caribbean. She loves to travel, and has been all over the world.

I love to just cruise any old time, she said with a laugh. I stay active, but my neighbours (my age) go to sleep. I cant tolerate that.

I find things to do. I work in the Green Memorial Hospital helping those who cant help themselves. I help the Church whenever I can.

She is also active at the Christ Episcopal Church, where she enjoys helping out where she can.

I think Ive lived so long because I try to eat well, said Ms Symonds. I dont eat junk food. I was a physical educator and a dancer and I never stopped.

The only time I stopped was when I pulled my back out for two or three weeks. I still ride my bicycle. Plus, I eat well. I dont like junk food. I cook my own food and I invite others to come and eat FOOD.

She has one son, Curtis Symonds, and one adopted daughter, Dianne Taylor, and five grandsons.

Theres a streak of longevity in her family.

Her sister Geraldine Bassett is 98, and her sister Cristabel Cann, died last year aged 100.