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ENTERTAINMENT

96-year-old local moves to next round of 'America's Got Talent'

Kevin Phelan
kphelan@lohud.com
  • White Plains%27 Tao-Porchon-Lynch will perform on %27America%27s Got Talent%27 June 9
  • The 96-year-old will be ballroom dancing. %27I just like dancing%2C%27 she says
  • %27Nothing is impossible%2C%27 she says. %27Inside of us is the power to do anything.%27

Update with video:Tao Porchon-Lynch wowed the judges and audience on Tuesday and will advance to the next round of "America's Got Talent."

"America's Got Talent" turns 10 years old this year. One of its contestants, Tao Porchon-Lynch, turns 97.

“The young man that I'm dancing with there (Vard Margaryan) is 70 years younger than me,” says Tao Porchon-Lynch, a 96-year-old White Plains native appearing on “America’s Got Talent.”

"Nothing is impossible," says the 96-year-old White Plains resident. "Inside of us is the power to do anything."

Porchon-Lynch, who holds the Guinness World Record for Oldest Yoga Instructor, will appear on NBC's popular reality competition June 9, performing a ballroom dance. Check out her video here.

She hadn't planned to audition, Porchon-Lynch says, explaining that she was instead invited to come perform.

"I wasn't trying to compete in it," she says. "I was just going to do a performance. But then, when I got there and I did it, the judges jumped up and said, 'This is something special!'

She says the auditioning and performing process, which took place at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in March, was a spectacle. "I'd never seen anything like that before," she says, adding that she wasn't intimidated due to years of film and stage experience.

Porchon-Lynch hasn't been dancing for long, relatively speaking.

"I was 85 when I started to dance," she says. But she's made up for lost time, having won hundreds of first place ribbons at various dance competitions in the ensuing years.

"I just like dancing."

She took the "America's Got Talent" stage with Vard Margaryan, her former dance instructor at Fred Astaire Dance Studio and frequent partner.

"The young man that I'm dancing with there is 70 years younger than me," she says. "I have fun with it."

Porchon-Lynch says that, at her age, people are often surprised she's still so active, but that, with enough dedication, anything is possible.

"When you believe in something, go and do it," she says. "Don't just procrastinate. Don't just sit back and say I believe I can. Words are easy, but not action."

Porchon-Lynch's birthday is Aug. 13 and, always the optimist, she says she sees it as a sign of even more good to come.

"In two months I'm going to be 97," she says. "But seven is my lucky number, so I'm looking forward to it."

"America's Got Talent" airs Tuesdays on NBC at 8 p.m.

Twitter: @kev_incredulous