Putting the fun back into dance classes

Annie Blatchford has just finished dancing with 50 strangers in the darkness of a hired church hall.

With the windows covered over to keep out the daylight, she could barely see her fellow dancers as they all got lost in the music at the alcohol-free gathering, in Melbourne, Australia.

Annie, 26, says she is normally too shy to dance in public, but that it is much easier to go for it when she knows that no-one is watching.

“There is no judgement, or need to feel uncomfortable,” she says. “It was a great space to let loose.”

Annie is one of thousands of people around the world who now meet regularly to dance together in near darkness (there is just enough light to prevent you from bumping into other participants), as part of a dance organisation called No Lights No Lycra.

It is part of a growing change in the world of dance classes for women, away from the formality of mirror-lined exercise studios, and pressures to get your moves correct and in time with everyone else.

Instead the emphasis is increasingly on unstructured fun, not taking yourself seriously, and the freedom to dance without any concern about how you look, or whether you should be losing any weight.

In addition to the success of No Lights No Lyrca, the movement has seen the rise of dance classes based solely upon the distinctive moves of US singer Beyonce, or the poses made by New York drag queens.

As the old saying goes, “dance like no-one is watching”. That was what Melbourne friends Alice Glenn and Heidi Barrett, both 34, had in mind when they founded No Lights No Lycra in 2009.