Viral dancing seniors strike a chord in Italy's oldest region

An elderly Italian couple dancing to Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley in a Roman square has become an internet sensation, according to France 24 and The Local Italy, striking a chord in a country with the EU's oldest population. The pair, whose street performance was shared online by a tour operator, said they hope their sudden fame will push their peers off the sofa and into a more active lifestyle.

The viral moment is a rare piece of good news in a national conversation that is otherwise dominated by heatwaves, drought and political squabbles. For Italy's regions, where the median age creeps ever higher and young people leave for the cities, the image of two seniors dancing in a piazza offers a brief, uncomplicated pleasure.

Nowhere is that demographic reality more acute than in Molise, a region of 289,000 people that has become a byword for depopulation. Foreign features on Italy's shrinking towns often cite the region's 'pay-you-to-move-here' schemes and its abandoned villages, and the viral dancing couple offers a gentler counterpoint to that narrative of decline.