They were performing as part of World Sight Day, an annual day of awareness for blindness and vision impairment.
The dance team performed to Louis Armstrong’s My Walking Stick with Dunedin-developed Victa Viz sticks in-hand.
The sticks had been designed to improve the visibility and safety of visually impaired pedestrians.
The performance by the group, formed in response to research saying dancing could help ward off dementia and improve cognitive ability, drew a crowd who clapped and cheered on the women.
One on-looker, Cynthia Greensill, said: "It was lovely and I am interested in the new canes, as my husband was blind."
Project facilitator Kathryn Olcott was pleased with their performance.
"We have been practising for quite a few months now and we are absolutely pleased and glad that the nerves of the first performance are out of the way."
Dunedin celebrated World Sight Day with a selection of other activities in the Octagon and the Dunedin City Library.
There was singing on buses, low vision challenges and a debate entitled Driving is so Last Century.
Volunteer Meg Sutton, an occupational therapy student, thought the event was important for awareness.
"It changes your life completely, conditions like this where you cannot see. It is so much harder to do everyday activities," Miss Sutton said.
The Otago Daily Times also supported World Sight Day, publishing a section of The Wash column in yesterday’s edition in a larger font to help highlight the challenges that people face when losing their sight.
ODT commercial manager Matthew Holdridge said that since the launch of the ODT e-edition, in particular the iPad tablet version of the newspaper, "we’ve received really positive feedback from readers as they can easily expand the font size of stories".
- Fleur Mealing
