The studio at Dansworks Dance Academy, in the Pioneer Buildings, became the focus for Pudsey Bear and a film crew.

Members of Bacup Dansworks Dance Academy meet Pudsey.

They were shooting a promotional video for the national Tapathon to be held on Sunday 16th October as part of the BBC appeal Children In Need.

Principal Karen Scott-Roe said: “We were delighted when we were contacted by the organisers The Performers’ Project and asked to provide the venue to launch the record attempt.

“Even though it was short notice, parents were thrilled to bring their children for the extra session and we even had some none-dancers come in just to see Pudsey and give him a great big hug.

“Dancers were aged four through to adult and they all said what a fantastic time they had.

“The tune picked for the Tapathon is I Feel Good, which was familiar to a lot of the dancers and it is a nice lively, happy song. There are two tap versions, one for youngsters and one for the more experienced and we got about 30 minutes to practise before Pudsey joined in.

Members of Bacup Dansworks Dance Academy meet Pudsey.

“It was a stiflingly hot day and we had to keep allowing Pudsey to nip in the dressing room to quickly cool off.”

Karen, 44, from Bacup, has been a dance teacher for about 25 years and spent her 18th birthday travelling to Mexico to join a touring music and dance production.

“I trained at the Northern Ballet School in Manchester and have also toured Europe danced in summer seasons in Britain,” she said.

“In 2008 I started Dansworks and last September we opened our own studio and it has been a phenomenal success. We have around 250 children and adults who regularly attend lessons.”

The dance school’s youngest members are 18 months old while the oldest member is Elsie Smith who is in her 80s and attends the Mature Moves class.

Dansworks also offers special needs classes and all members take part in exams and get to star in the annual show.

Karen added: “Dancing has been so much a part of my life for so many years. I believe it is an excellent form of self-expression.

“When we ask for feedback many people say that attending our dance studio increases their confidence and one lad had been struggling at school but since attending classes his work has improved.”

Street dancing family… Jack, Jayden and Kelsey Leigh.

Being born with the congenital deformity talipes or club foot, both his feet were put into plaster casts at just five days old to manipulate his feet into the right direction. At eight weeks he was then fitted with special boots and braces, which he had to wear round the clock for eight months, to stop his feet from further deformity.

Now the three-year-old has just passed his first street dancing rosette, after principal at Bacup’s Dansworks Dance Academy Karen Scott-Roe sought special dispensation for the toddler to take his exam early.

She said: “Children are supposed to be three when they take the exam, but Jayden was just a few days off his birthday.

“He attends classes with his four-year-old sister Kelsey and he wanted to be able to take the exam with her so we applied to the International Dance Teachers’ Association for permission. He passed the exam with flying colours.”

His mum Vicky, 30, of Rose Bank Street, Bacup, said: “When I went for my 20-week scan they identified that he had club foot and when he was born both his feet were like a banana shape, pointing the wrong way, and he had no ankles

“When he was a baby we used to say Jayden had funky feet, it was a way of coping with it. He couldn’t crawl like other children because he had to wear the boots and frame and he would drag his straight legs to move about. He was 18 months old before he developed a heel and 20 months before he could walk unaided.”

Now Jayden is just like any other child at Dansworks, performing an assisted handstand, playing air guitar, doing the splits and greeting everyone with a cheeky smile and a giggle.

Full-time mum Vicky said: “His older brother Jack, eight, also attends Dansworks and has been performing in street dancing competitions so Jayden was always copying him.

“Kelsey started lessons at 18 months and Jayden joined her six months ago.

“Karen has been brilliant with him. His muscles were wasting away because he was not able to use them for so long but thanks to the dance routines, and learning different positions, he has been able to stretch his ligaments and the hospital is amazed at how well he is doing.

“They were planning for him to have an operation on his tendons, but it looks like that now won’t need to take place.

“It has been a big thing for him to come dancing. It has brought him out of himself, made him more flexible, really improved his confidence and his social skills.”

Jayden starts at Bacup Nursery School in September. He is still under the consultant at Manchester Children’s Hospital and he will be wearing his boots and braces overnight for 12 hours each day until he is five.
His sister Kelsey was also born with club foot, but because her condition was less severe than Jayden’s it could be rectified by physiotherapy. Club foot affects one in 1,000 births.

Vicky added: “It is just amazing to see him now in the dance classes. I am very proud of all my children and Jayden is my little star.”

To find out more about Dansworks visit www.dansworks.co.uk or call

Last month youths, some as young as nine, ran amok in Bacup town centre smashing windows and property in a rampage which mimicked rioting in larger towns and cities.

Backing Bacup: Karen Scott-Roe, principal of
Danceworks Dance Academy, and Dale
Connearn, business development manager.

Dansworks Dance Academy, in the Pioneer Buildings, was founded in 2008 and moved into its town centre studio a year ago.

Principal Karen Scott-Roe and her fiance Dale Connearn, business development manager, run the dance studio.

Former borough councillor Dale is born and bred Bacup. He said: “I love Bacup and have always been involved with projects for young people.

“There is so much out there for youngsters to do they have no reason to be hanging about on a street corner claiming to be bored.

“Last Saturday I walked between our studio and the Post Office and there were smashed beer glasses outside the neighbourhood office, the kebab shop had a window put through and I passed numerous smashed bottles of alcopops. It just makes me feel so sad that this is my town.”

At the studio street dance proves popular with girls and boys with a number of teenagers busy in rehearsals for their first competition at The UDO Midland Street Dance Championships in October.

Karen, a dance teacher for 20 years, said: “In our junior street dance section, under 10s, we have more boys than girls in the classes and we also have many older teenage girls and boys in the senior section.

“We get a lot of children coming into the dance studios enquiring about classes; is it not better for them to be learning dance rather than hanging around in the town centre.”

Dale, who was also a postman in the town, a community development worker and former leisure hall manager, said: “It is all about achieving your potential. Any gang is only a few at the top – the rest are just followers.

“If you want to make a difference and take control of your life instead of following the crowd why not take up a hobby? We have lads who do street dance and after three to six months you see a real change in them. They are more confident and have something to aspire to.”

Karen added: “The feedback from parents is tremendous. They tell us how their children have more confidence and self-esteem and their school work has improved since taking up dance classes.”

Charlie, 9, attends classes five days a week at Bacup’s Dansworks Dance Academy.

Award-winning dancer Charlie Morris.

She took part in the Simmons Dance Festival in Ainsworth and won gold medals and trophies for the junior tap solo and junior song and dance.

Principal of Dansworks Dance Academy Karen Scott-Roe said: “Charlie was asked by the adjudicator to perform her tap solo again in the ‘best of festival’ at the end of the competition. She was then was surprised to be presented with ‘most promising novice’ for the whole festival which is open to both junior and seniors aged 7-16.”

Charlie, from Hoghton Avenue, Bacup, who said she enjoys tap and ballet the best, said: “I was not expecting to win and was delighted when they announced my name. My mum Julie and dad Michael were there and they were really pleased and proud.”

Julie said: “She just enjoys dancing so much and she has got a lot more confidence through going to the dance classes. We are very proud of her.”

Charlie now has so many trophies her mum said they were considering building a new shelf just to house them.

Her dance teacher Karen said: “She does every style of dancing from street dance to ballet and musical theatre. She is doing really well and just achieved a distinction in her Royal Academy of Dance ballet exam.

“We have worked very hard on improving her technique and especially her stage presence and confidence, which are all absolutely vital in order to compete. She has really risen to the challenge and has become an amazing little performer! She has only just started entering competitions and it was only the second time she had performed the tap solo. We could not have asked for a better result.”

And Charlie will be in another competition on October 9 when she takes part in The UDO Midland Street Dance Championships in Stoke. Her street dance crew from Dansworks go under the name Hypnotize.

As well as being a dancer, Charlie is also a skilful cornet player playing with Whitworth Vale and Healey Band, Rochdale Junior Band, her school’s band at Smithy Bridge Primary in Littleborough, and working towards her Grade 5.

When she is not playing the cornet or doing singing lessons Charlie is not the only dancer to have received an award recently, as Dansworks Dance Academy held its presentation night at Bacup Hub in September when 120 exam awards were handed out and dancers gave demonstrations of different dance styles from Irish dance to musical theatre.

The school is the only one to offer special needs dance for adults and children and class members also received exam awards at the Hub.

Dansworks Dance Academy was selected by the organisers of the Children In Need fund-raiser, The Performers’ Project, to help launch the tapathon event in June when Pudsey visited the studio to teach dancers the routine.

Tapping for Pudsey: Members of Bacup Dansworks Dance
Academy raise funds for Children In Need by joining the
world record attempt.

The organisers were aiming for the most dancers performing the same tap dancing routine at the same time at different locations.

Principal Karen Scott-Roe said: “We had 30 participants aged from two to 64. It was a fantastic fun event.

“People came in from about noon and we all practised the routine. Then we got the text through from The Performers’ Project and the countdown began.

“We had to have people witness the dance and we took photographs and videos of the performance and have uploaded them to our Facebook site.

“Everyone who came had a fantastic time and there were loads of happy smiling faces.”

Dansworks raised nearly £200 for the BBC appeal and will be participating in future Children In Need activities.

Slingshot is a junior crew of street dancers aged eight to 10 from Bacup’s Dansworks Dance Academy who performed in their first competition at the prestigious UDO Midland Street Dance Championships in Stoke.

Dancing to success: Jade Rawstron, Emily Biel, Jack Leigh,
Isabella Harding, Shannon Cokell, Jacob Ainsworth and
Heathcliff Howard.

Business development manager Dale Connearn said: “We had two teams enter the competition, our under 18s called Hypnotize and Slingshot who were in the junior class. Considering it was the first time they had competed and they were up against more than 70 other groups who were of an incredibly high standard they did superbly well. There were 1,200 competitors performing routines in the sports centre.

“The juniors got fourth place and that qualifies them for the World Championships to be held at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool over a weekend next August.”

Slingshot has only been practising as a crew since May and astounded parents, and themselves, with their success.

Jack Leigh, eight, said: “I was quite excited and also nervous at the competition but when I get dancing it feels like I am in space and I can do whatever I want to.”

Jade Rawstron, 10, added: “As soon as we all got to dancing I didn’t feel scared. I have only taken part in one show before and I was delighted we did so well.

“Dancing is really exciting, it makes me happy and I enjoy it. I used to go somewhere else to dance but I didn’t enjoy it much; I love it here.”

Also in the crew were nine-year-olds Emily Biel, Jacob Ainsworth, Shannon Cokell, Isabella Harding and Heathcliff Howard, eight,

The academy, in Pioneer Buildings, also runs adult street dance classes and the adult team will be competing in a competition in November in Bradford and is soon to set up a tots class for three-year-olds.

Slingshot’s teacher Lizzy Goodman said: “They were going just for a practice run and so they surprised all of us with how well they did. We are now working on new routines for more competitions in November and working towards next year’s final.”

YOUNG dancers from a studio in Bacup scooped an amazing 33 trophies and nine medals from a single competition.

The members of Bacup’s Dansworks Dance Academy, aged six to 16, competed in the Greater Manchester Street Dancing Compeition at the Longfield Suite in Prestwich.

”

TROPHY success: The street dancing crew from Bacup’s
Dansworks Dance Academy and teacher Lizzy Goodman.

Of the 18 children, some had danced in front of judges before but several were entering the solo and duo competitions for the first time.

Principal at Dansworks Karen Scott-Roe said: “I was not able to attend and so was receiving texts from the teachers and I could not believe how well they were doing.

“Their dance teacher Lizzy Goodman has only been teaching here since September 2010 and she choreographed all the routines. She is doing an amazing job for someone who has only just started teaching.”

Lizzy said: “It was really good and there was a really good atmosphere. I wasn’t expecting them to do as well as they did but as soon as the first trophies were awarded we just seemed to be on a roll.

“I don’t think about my role in their dancing when they are performing, it is just about the children enjoying what they are doing and about the effort they are putting in.”

Karen said: “We had children enter the break-dancing competition and electric boogie, which are both unchoreographed forms of dance. The judges did a small demonstration of electric boogie and they just had to freestyle it.”

In the street dancing competition Dansworks seven-strong team Slingshot was first in the under 12s while then nine-members of Hypnotize were second in the under 16s.

In break-dancing, eight-year-old Jack Leigh was second in the under 12s category and Declan Ashton, 14, who was entering his first competition, came fourth.

In the under 12s competition for electric boogie Emily Rogers, 11, was third, Isabella Harding, nine, was fourth and Jack Leigh was eighth. Declan Ashton came third in the under 16s.

Slingshot will also be performing in the world championships next summer at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool after qualifying at an earlier competition.

Dansworks Dance Academy is based in the Pioneer Buildings, Bacup, and for

That’s my heart: Nine-year-old
Leon Watson with his heart on the
Christmas Wishes tree.

Children from Sharneyford and Northern Primary Schools had made heart-shaped decorations as had older children from KGs in Bacup. At the Christmas Arts and Crafts Market on Saturday, residents of all ages were given the chance to place hearts on the living tree outside Woodcock’s Solicitors in Irwell Terrace.

Meanwhile in a nearby marquee and on the market many craft stalls were organised including one manned by a team from hand-made team from Burnley who have just despatched their first order to Prince Charles’ Highgrove shop.

Artists Christine Worswick, Stan Cropper, Bill Ingham and Jackie Summerfield showed their work in an empty shop on Burnley Road and Knitting Communities Together also displayed blankets made from bunting used at Rawtenstall Annual Fair.

A heart treasure trail saw children seeking out hearts in businesses around the town.

Chairman of Bacup Pride Kevin Edmondson said: “Can I just say, on behalf of Bacup Pride, Bacup Traders and indeed the people of Bacup, a big thank you to all those involved in Saturdays event; it was a great success!
“I would like to mention one person who I think is particularly deserving of thanks and that is the Lollipop Lady who gave up her day willingly and stayed at her post by the library all day in all weathers keeping everyone safe while crossing the road.”

All heart: Davina Neill, three, is given a lift by
her dad John to place a heart on the tree.

At the tree local resident John Neill held his three-year-old daughter aloft so she could place a heart on the tree.
He said: “I think this is just brilliant. It has put a smile on everyone’s faces.”

Bacup Consortium Trust chair Di van Ruitenbeek said: “This is about putting negativity behind us and celebrating the town.”

Outside Th’Owd Con Club Stacksteads Band played, Britannia Coconutters danced, a choir from Bacup Fellowship of Churches sang carols and youngsters from Dansworks entertained.

One of the organisers community development worker at Rossendale charity REAL Pat Smith said: “I am delighted with the support everyone showed this event, from the people who had stalls, provided entertainment and helped to set the event up on the day. We are hoping that we can hold a similar event in the future.”

Jacob Ainsworth, nine, and Heathcliff Howard, eight, both in Year 4, represented Britannia Primary School and won their section in the National School’s Street Dance Championships Final in the Winter Gardens in Blackpool.

Champions: Heathcliff Howard and Jacob Ainsworth
with Twist and Pulse.

They were even more thrilled when former Britain’s Got Talent runners up Twist and Pulse announced the result and also put on a special performance.

Both boys dance at Dansworks Dance Academy in the Pioneer Buildings and the academy also runs classes at their school.

They were among the youngest contestants as this is the first time primary school children have been eligible for the competition.

Jacob has been street dancing for 18 months and Heathcliff for two years but they have only been dancing as a duo for a year.

“I really enjoy dancing, it is a good way to make new friends,” said Jacob. While Heathcliff added: “It is good to work hard and have fun.”

Heathcliff admitted he was nervous before they danced but ‘screamed his head off’ when they were announced as the winners.

Headteacher of Britannia Primary School Mike Hull said: “I think it is an absolutely fantastic performance and we are very proud to have two national champions in school.

“They did a demonstration dance for the school at the start of the term and having seen them dance they are clearly very good. It is nice to have boys involved in dance and it creates a real stir in school.”

The boys earned their place in the final after winning their section at the UDO Yorkshire Street Dancing Championships held in Bradford.

Two other Dansworks teams in the competition both represented Thorn Primary School. They comprised Jack Leigh, eight, and Shannon Cokell, nine, and Regan Cokell, seven, and her sister Kirsten, six.

Principal of Dansworks Karen Scott-Roe said: “I am so thrilled for Jacob and Heathcliff they are fantastic dancers and put a lot of hard work into their training.

“We took about 30 dancers to the Bradford competition aged from six to 44 and Jack and Shannon also performed well and came third.”

The popularity of street dancing on talent shows has led to an increased the number of boys seeking lessons.
Karen said: “Our classes are excellent for boosting confidence, helping with focusing issues and improving boys’ school work.”

But it was not just youngsters competing in Bradford, the adult crew at Dansworks, Unhinged, made up of many of the parents of young dancers, entered their first competition and came in third.

Karen said: “The adult crew have only been dancing together for three months and they did excellently well. Before they went on I think they were more nervous than children who were competing.”

Two crews from Dansworks have now qualified for the World Street Dance Finals in Blackpool next summer – under 10s Slingshot and Unhinged.

Dansworks works in eight primary and secondary schools from Rawtenstall to Shawforth and any school looking to hold sessions can contact Karen on