Dancers head for bright lights of Las Vegas

Dancebase Academy and Performing Arts will be one of two Scottish dance troupes heading to America in May for a live show at the Tommy Wind theatre.

The opportunity came about after principle teacher Lindsey Donald found the application and decided to put her girls up for it.

One proud mum, Samantha Sutherland, told the Reporter: “Basically Lindsey came across the competition and applied and it wound up that our girls were chosen.

“We’ve been fundraising for the past year and we’re still at it. We’ve almost hit our target but we need a big push from our next two events this February.”

The 15 young dancers are all aged between eight and 13 and will be performing a Hip Hop/Lyrical piece on stage on front of thousands.

The girls have been crowned champions in these styles of dance for the past couple of years at UK dance competitions and have also donated some of their time by performing at local charity events.

Their performances include annual dancing displays in the Denny civic theatre, Dance Champs with host Jennifer Ellison and at the Clyde auditorium and students that have taken part include Abby Lee Miller, Alexa Moffat, Debbie Barrass, Jennifer Ellison , Rebecca Davies and Sam Dennis workshops who are well known in the dance industry.

Parents of Dancebase have been working hard since 2016 to fundraise for the dance academy to make sure their once in a lifetime opportunity happens for their children.

Lindsey has been dancing herself since the age of two in all styles of dance and musical theatre. She said she is “overjoyed” to be able to perform at such a big show on the other side of the world with her local dance school.

Another local artist, Tika Man, has donated a painting for the raffle amongst other very kind donations from local businesses.

The academy will be hosting a few bagpacking events at supermarkets over the next few weeks to help raise some more of the vital funds to get them to Vegas.