Latest News - Zest Dance Workshops

Props

Valance Special Needs Secondary School

• Our large fish and jellyfish props
• Small hand held scarves for stormy waves and seaweed
• Large blue scarves for gentle waves
• Squishy balls for sea urchins

We taught an Animal themed dance workshop and got in touch with our WILD SIDE!

We had three year 1 classes wanting an animal theme to go with the topic they are learning about in class. They requested a range of animals: Mammals, birds, amphibians, insects and fish. It was a challenge to fit them all into one dance – but we enjoyed embracing our creativity and creating a fun dance.

The Royal Opera House

We got inspiration from a recent trip to The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. They were displaying some incredible animal masks/heads which were created for the ballet Alcina (see the pics below). We showed these photos to the children at the start of each workshop and they loved how realistic they are. We talked about what a challenge it must be to perform a ballet wearing one of them!

Music

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Zest was invited to do a Bollywood dance workshop with the brilliant organisation called ‘Connecting Conversations’ in Camden, London, which is a Dementia support network.

The group meets once a month in Belsize Park. It’s a relaxed group for adults and their families/carers who have Dementia. They run a different activity each month and encourage everyone to get involved. They also invite lots of local people who run Dementia friendly activities to come and talk about what they have coming up for people to join with. Things like art activities, singing groups, even visits to London Zoo are organised!

It’s a great way of supporting people with Dementia, getting them out and about and connecting them to interesting things happening locally.

Bollywood Dance Workshop

We were invited to do a Bollywood dance workshop with everyone.

We decorated the space by draping a large red Sari and some colourful Indian Umbrellas. We also bought in loads of Indian scarves and Bindis for people to dress up in, to get them into the mood 🙂

The group of 29 people were mostly in their 70’s and 80’s and were reluctant to stand up at first or be too energetic! So we did the first few exercises sitting in chairs which worked well. With Bollywood dance there are loads of Mudras to teach (hand positions) so we started off teaching some of these to get the fine motor skills kicking in. Keeping hands mobile and strong is vital as we get older.

Next we got everyone standing and extending some of the moves we taught sitting down, to use the whole body. We kept it gentle and not too fast, so that everyone could join in. Bollywood is great as there are lots of little short moves that can be repeated, so that a short dance sequence miraculously appears. It’s great to see the joy on people’s faces as they move their body in rhythm to the music.

Dance for people with Dementia feels really freeing, as there’s no pressure to sit still or keep quiet. We encourage everyone to express themselves as they want to and enjoy the movement with no fear of getting moves ‘wrong’.

Bollywood music and the moves feel joyful, and I think that rubs off to the people we are teaching.

After we had finished, delicious home made cakes and tea was served! We got chatting to one woman who bought a tear to our eyes when she said,

“This has been the best thing i’ve done since I got my diagnosis”.

What do you say to that?! It means so much to us to be able to create a safe space for people to enjoy dance.

We were honored to be part of such a great session and look forward to our next visit to them in May – for some 60’s themed dancing!

Senior Movers

Take a look at our other dance workshops online and on Youtube that we do for Senior Movers!

Step back in time with our Tudor dance workshops!

We had a great time recently at Meadow Primary School in Epsom in January, with their three year 5 classes. They are studying the Medieval and Tudor times, so our Tudor dance workshops got them up and moving, and added an extra educational layer to their learning.

Workshop content:

Intro:

We started with a talk about this time in history and finding out how much each class knew about the subject already. We told them lots of information about this time: jobs/money/gender roles, and about the different classes they had in society, it’s hierarchy and how they all worked together.

Dressing up:

We showed them photos of nobility and talked about the clothing they would have worn. Accounts from that time tell us that their fancy clothing was really uncomfortable and hard to dance in!

Our dance teacher also wore a Medieval style dress and had her hair up in braids like they would have worn it at the time. See the pics above.

Music:

We talk about the music of the time and played examples. Speaking about the kinds of instruments they would have used and the sounds created.

Dance styles:

There are many different Medieval and Tudor dances that have been recorded in history. Take a look at our Medieval dance workshops page for a detailed list of them.

Dances:

We taught the year 5’s one slow dance, the Pavane, as this is a good one to get them working in pairs and taking things steady. They really got into the characters of nobility entering a grand, castle ready for a royal occasion!

Next we did the Galliard dance, to get the blood pumping with some high energy moves. It’s a fun one to do, using lots of high kicks and leg moves. 

Performance:

We ended each workshop with a short performance from each group. It’s really beneficial for them to watch each other dance and feel proud of what they have achieved throughout the session with us.

Other historical dances:

Check out the other historical dance styles we do on our ‘Decades Dance’ page.

Contact us:

Get in touch if you’d like to bring some Medieval dance workshops to your school or group.

Our space themed dance workshops are out of this world!

We were excited to teach back at Oakfield Academy for our second year at their Binfield and Oakwood sites. This was our 2nd year providing dance workshops for them, and the theme this time was SPACE.

Their two sites are close to each other, so we ran one full day of dance workshops at each school site. We ran workshops for all the classes in the schools, and adapted the content for early years, KS1 and KS2 classes.  We had loads of astronauts and aliens dancing in the schools, they loved it!

Immersive dance

Immersive dance and theatre is our favourite thing to watch as it gets you really involved.  So when we get a fun theme like these spaced themed workshops – we like to go for it. Living and breathing the scenes you are part of and becoming weightless in space.

Our teacher dressed up in a NASA t-shirt and ‘space helmet’ and had some large pieces of metallic silver material to use as props for the dance.

She told everyone at the start of each workshop that she was requiting new astronauts for her ‘Space School’. The KS1 children really got involved wanting to be accepted and taken on her next space mission!

The silver material was used in different ways:

• Create the body of the space rocket
• The surface of the moon/planet
• Representing the atmosphere as the space rocket flies through space
• A backdrop for some alien dances

Immersive companies

Check out some of our favourite immersive companies creating great work across the UK.

Punchdrunk

You Me Bum Bum Train

Phantom Peak 

Contact Us

Get in touch if you have an unusual theme that you’d like to make come alive through some creative dance workshops.

Culture Day at St Philomena’s High School

We were excited to teach back at St Philomena’s Girl’s High School in Surrey. This was our 4th year providing dance workshops for it!

They always have a Cultural Day on the last day of term for the whole school – so that’s a lot of dance workshops for all classes in the whole school!

We provided seven experienced dance teachers for the day, who taught a range of cultural dance styles:

Chinese – Fan dance
Indian – Bollywood dance
Egyptian – Bellydance
Brazilian – Samba dance
Spanish – Flamenco dance
African – West African dance
French – Can-Can dance

We like to inspire our students and so we bring in photos, costumes and props to match each dance style. This gives the students more of an in depth knowledge about different cultures during our workshop.

It’s really important to celebrate cultural diversity, and become more understanding and welcoming people.

We aim to make them well rounded, understanding and bright girls – who will go on to achieve GREAT things in life!

Thanks to our teach of amazing Zest dance teachers for making this Culture Day a big success x

Read more about what we can offer for your Cultural or International Days here.

We were excited to perform at the Headstone Village Show 2025, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Harrow.

We provided some 1960’s themed dancing to fit with the event’s theme, and we couldn’t wait to get involved.

Held at the Headstone Manor Museum, it was a packed event. With loads of stalls, children’s rides, a stage for live music performances, a horticultural competition (who won the prize for the longest green bean?!) and lots of other entertainment, like storytelling and hula hoop workshops.

Zest had 4 dance performance slots throughout the day, and we wanted loads of people to get involved and have a go at our workshops.

Our entertainment included

• A 5min 60’s performance from our two professional dancers to a famous Beach Boys song
• A 20min dance workshop for adults and children
• Learning loads of iconic 60’s dance moves
• Partner work (it required lots of co-ordination)
• Putting together a dance routine
• Informal performance to any friends and family watching from the sidelines!

Event ideas

This act can be performed anywhere, to add some fun and nostalgia to any event.

• Birthdays
• Anniversaries
• Historical events
• School workshops
• Care homes
• Weddings
• Museums
• Corporate events
• Restaurants

Contact us

Get in touch if you’d like a 60’s themed performance or workshop and we can send you lots of info and our prices.

We love reading and know how important it is for children to enjoy it too. Of course we love dancing – so our book themed workshops are a perfect mix!

We were booked during Feb half term 2025 to come up to Manchester to visit the RHS Gardens in Bridgewater. They were running lots of activities for children all week and their theme was the book ‘Guess how much I love you’ by Sam McBratney.

Take a look at the funny video below to see what our Big Nutbrown Hare got up too…..

We taught 5 x 30min workshops which were aimed at children from 3-7years old. We had a great turn out with almost all sessions selling out with 30 children in each session. With over that many parents in watching too, it was a busy day.

We bought bunny ears for all the children to wear to get them into the mood for a good hop!

Dance workshop content for our book themed workshops

• Intro from our dance teacher
• Warm up using rabbit themed songs (the Rock N Roll rabbit was a great find)
• Hopping competition – who can hop the highest and furthest!
• Reading the story of ‘Guess how much I love you’
• Teaching a dance based on all the ways the Big and Little Nutbrown Hares tell each other they love them
• A chance for the children to make up creative movements based on their ideas of love (see below)
• A good stretch to finish after all that jumping

Children’s ideas

At the end of the dance we asked the children for ideas to add on to the dance, of ways that they could love (in the style of the book)

Here are some of our favourite ones that they came up with.

I love you as much as…

• Strawberries
• Gloves
• My baby brother
• A volcano
• All the fish in the ocean
• 4 Elephants on top of each other
• Around all the planets and back to earth
• All the bunnies in the world

We had so much fun embracing their ideas and creating movements to go with their inspiration. Young minds are amazing!

World Book Day

We do loads of dance workshops to support World Book Day in schools. This workshop is perfect for KS1 classes in schools and early years settings.

Contact us

Get in touch if you’d like a workshop and we can send you lots of info and our prices.