Move over Kimberley Walsh, see you later Denise van Outen, after today's West End Workout dance class, team Zest may just be the new stars of the stage...
The Zest Team have uncovered the latest dance craze; it's got all the feel-good fun of Zumba, but it’s sprinkled with a little jazz hands magic! We headed down to Dance Works Studios in London to take a class with Laura Scott, ex-West End dancer, and creator of the West End Workout. After 10 years of strutting her stuff in the likes of Sweet Charity and Oklahoma, she’s designed a class that helps you lose weight, tone up and release your inner West End diva.
We’re not your average dance troupe, while some of us love a little hip shaking fun, others are far more likely to be spinning, running or working up a sweat in a hardcore gym class, but we all came out of this workout high on endorphins.
The concept is similar to Zumba - you don’t spend an hour trying to follow a complicated routine to one song, stumbling over your own feet, wondering how everyone else in the room seems to have mastered it, here you dance your way through twelve tunes from the likes of Ghost, We Will Rock You and Mamma Mia. The choreography is simple enough that you can keep up and moves are repeated throughout the class so you get used to them. Classes run in blocks of ten weeks and you perform the same routines in each class, so as you get familiar with the steps you can put some oomph into your performance and reap the fitness rewards.
If you’re a Zumba, aerobics or dance class fiend this is definitely a winner - 45 minutes of continuous choreography that you actually keep up with and that works every muscle. Even if you’re not (as Nicola, our web editor, can testify) it’s so up tempo, fast and fun, you’ll be converted. We’re expecting a call from a West End talent scout any minute.
