Quahog, short for poquahock, the Narragansett tribe's word for hard-shelled clams, is not typically part of the Vermont vocabulary.

But at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in St. Johnsbury, a chalkboard sign that reads "Quahog Dance Theatre" is set at the sidewalk's edge most Tuesday and Thursday mornings. It advertises "FREE FUN" in the form of a senior citizen dance troupe from 10 to 11:30 a.m.

Why name a Vermont dance group for seniors after a clam?

"I love the word 'quahog,'" said teacher and troupe founder Janet Warner-Ashley, who grew up on the Portsmouth end of Aquidneck Island in Rhode Island, where the clams are common. "I lived on clams and mussels harvested from the shore in my starving student days."

Naming the dance troupe she founded in 2021 after the quahog was a deliberate metaphor. "My dancers are precious, and they sustain me," Warner-Ashley, 71, said. In return, her biweekly dance class aims to sustain the physical and social well-being of its senior participants.

Recently, she said, a student observed to her, "I bet you named this Quahog Dance because you want us to come out of our shells."

Warner-Ashley's response: "What could I say but 'Yes!'"

Inside the light-filled sanctuary of St. Andrew's on a recent morning, 10 seniors gathered in a circle, seated in chairs they would later push out of the way when it was time to dance. First they warmed up, following their slender and sprite-like leader through a series of motions.

"It's all about your breathing," Warner-Ashley said.

"Shake your head yes, then no. Relax the neck a little bit."

"Relax your jaw, inhale, exhale."

"Let go of the tension."

"No TMJ, please!"

"It feels good, doesn't it?"

Next, Warner-Ashley led the group through foot exercises, moving their raised feet back and forth, windshield wiper-style.

"I do this with my grandson," Warner-Ashley said, rotating her feet left to right in her black leather dance shoes.

As Warner-Ashley told Seven Days, her long career has almost always involved "something to do with performing or teaching or choreographing or directing." She earned bachelor's and master's degrees in theater performance from the University of Rhode Island and the University of Maine, respectively. She studied with masters, such as the mimes Marcel Marceau and Michael Grando, and over the years she's taught ballet, modern, jazz, musical theater, tap, mime and folk at St. Johnsbury Academy, the University of Maine, and several other schools and private dance studios.

The seeds of Quahog Dance Theatre were planted in the early 2000s, after Warner-Ashley and her family moved from Maine to Oconomowoc, Wis., where her husband had accepted a position as headmaster of a private school. Warner-Ashley got a job caring for elderly people — helping them to get out of the house and moving, or to practice their physical therapy at home. For Warner-Ashley, it was an emotionally difficult time: Her mother had died a few years earlier, and moving away from her busy life in Maine rekindled Warner-Ashley's grief. Working with older adults helped her process her mother's death.

"These elderly people became my teachers and mentors," she said. "It helped my grieving to care for others who treated me like family."

Her clients taught her a variety of things, from how to drive in the cities of Milwaukee and Waukesha to how to master baking pies and cakes. "I learned how important it was for people to keep active as they aged — and how important it was to find chances for social interaction," she said.

Studies show that routine physical activity is one of the most beneficial things for older adults — it can help stave off many effects of aging and allow seniors to maintain their independence longer. Older adults who lead social, active lifestyles tend to be happier, more resilient and less depressed; they may even live longer.

This was on Warner-Ashley's mind during the pandemic, when she — by then living in St. Johnsbury and a senior herself — retired from teaching and running the Summer Shakespeare festival at St. Johnsbury Academy. She was looking to do something meaningful, for herself and others.

"I thought of my senior citizens in Wisconsin," she said. "They loved dancing with me, and it brought them joy that transformed them from 'old people' to 'amazing, cool people.'" So she decided to create a dance program for senior citizens that would "allow them to be the amazing people they have always been," as Warner-Ashley put it. "I wanted them to dance with joy."

To help launch Quahog Dance Theatre in September 2021, she recruited dancer and choreographer Humberto "Tito" Hernandez as her co-teacher. He had moved to the Northeast Kingdom during the pandemic and had a deep background in teaching and performing, with credits in several Broadway productions: Jerome Robbins' Broadway, the national tour of Evita, and Cats in Vienna. He had also performed, directed and choreographed many regional productions and been the director of dance at the North Carolina Theatre Conservatory.

Hernandez, 59, suffered a stroke during the pandemic and isn't able to participate in Quahog as much as he would like. But he said attending dance classes with "older people — I won't say old!" — has been a joy for him.

For the first year of Quahog, Warner-Ashley paid out of pocket to rent Catamount Arts' Cabaret Room at a discounted rate. Classes moved to St. Andrew's last summer, and the Northeast Kingdom Council on Aging gave her a one-time grant to cover the entire year's rent. Since its inception, Quahog has received two Creative Aging grants from the Vermont Arts Council, as well as support from Catamount Arts, E.A. Michelson Philanthropy, the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as ongoing help with publicity and liability coverage from the NEK Council on Aging.

When Warner-Ashley started Quahog, she took a poll to find out what kinds of dance her students were interested in. The winners, according to Warner-Ashley, were ballroom and line dancing.

On the morning when Seven Days visited, the seniors stood up following the warm-ups — most wearing the slip-resistant socks that Warner-Ashley provides — and pushed their chairs to the side. Suddenly, the sanctuary space was transformed into a dance hall.

This morning, Warner-Ashley was teaching line dancing. She moved through the two lines of dancers — almost all women, holding one another's hands — and partnered with them briefly in turns, pointing her foot to demonstrate the moves and walking them through each step.

Her biggest message for her dancers, she told Seven Days, is "that they are in charge of their own dancing."

"As we age, certain movements may not be a great idea," she said. "For example, some people have difficulty turning, as they become dizzy or disoriented."

Joan Harlowe, 88, lives in East Burke and attends Quahog classes. She described them as "a lovely opportunity to stretch a lazy body, spend time with people I don't regularly see and, of course, it's healthy."

"Janet is encouraging, cheerful, never condescending," Harlowe added.

Damian Ryan, 66, is a friend of Warner-Ashley's who lives in St. Johnsbury. For him, Quahog has "been great," he said. "I have two left feet, so I can't dance, but Janet is constantly complimenting our technique. I just love her, and I do love the social aspect of it."

Sarah Houston of Walden, who is in her "eighth decade," said Quahog has made her feel connected at an age when many people can feel isolated. "I become this person happily living in the larger world," she explained.

"Something about the mental focus it calls for and the mind and body working together as we learn the steps without music and then dance them to music is pure magic," Houston said. "One of the first things I discovered was that it doesn't matter if you can't do it right, or right away. We're all babies learning to walk here, and it's OK."