New Year, New You - Time to tune up your groove: Jazzart Dance turns motion into enlivened exercise

 

It’s the New Year and with it, comes new thinking, new promises and a renewed commitment to getting into shape.  However, while New Year resolutions burn brightly at the beginning of the year, it is often hard to stay the course as real life sets in and we find ourselves back into the same old habits of yesteryear. Once sure fire way to maintain the desire to do something about your health and to get into shape and up those fitness levels, that is both fun and stimulating, is dance.  Jazzart Dance in particular.

The Jazzart Dance Company, based in Cape Town, has created a series of exciting public dance classes - for the whole family, all shapes and sizes and fitness levels - to tune up the groove. The award-winning contemporary dance company is on a mission to help South Africans get fit as well as providing a safe space for people to express their inner most emotions – all through movement. 

Dance may be a scary thought for self-doubting beginners, but Jazzart’s welcoming approach to a physical workout provides a safe space for exploration. “When we say we welcome everybody we mean just that” says Ananda Fuchs, Jazzart dance teacher, who together with Sifiso Kweyama, the artistic director has been teaching beginners and those with a bit of experience for some years. Fuchs believes dance to be an incredible discipline that can be learned at any age. “We take it easy (to start with), almost anyone can benefit from one or two classes a week” she adds.

The dance classes are not only about trimming down, it is about changed lives – enhancing health and athleticism while using a rewarding system that satisfies both one’s interior and exterior world.

The professional teachers utilize the fluidity of choreography to enable one to capitalise on beautiful movement, and this focused exercise can “invigorate the dancer’s energies and interrogate their inner connections,” interjects Kweyama.

Male and female school-going dancers, adults and anyone who wants to add the art form to their extracurricular activities are encouraged to join in, as well as those who have been shy about their body shape, fitness level, or co-ordination.

The benefits of Jazzart dance classes include building core strength, firm muscles without bulking up, improve balance and co-ordination, losing centimetres and kilos, stepping out of your comfort zone - learn something new, improved mental health and flexibility, increasing energy levels, meeting new people and expressing yourself like never before – own the moment.

The classes take place at the Jazzart studio RR552 at Artscape on Mondays from 17H30 to 18H45 of beginners, Tuesdays from 17H30 to 18H45 for Intermediate/advanced dancers and Saturdays at 10H00 to 11H00 for kiddies and continues for teens at 11H15 to 13H00.  A class costs R80 per adult and R70 per child. Packages are also available at R350 for five classes, R650 for 10 classes and R720 for Saturday classes per term. To book your lesson email dance@jazzart.co.za or call on (021) 410 9848.