Northampton youngsters will take on virtual 12-hour Irish dance-a-thon to raise money for local loneliness charity

A local dance school has set its pupils a challenge to keep dancing for 12 hours straight in a bid to raise money for a local charity.

Reynolds Academy of Irish Dance, based in Duston, will host a 12-hour virtual dance marathon next Saturday (May 2) to raise funds for Northampton based charity Earth’s Lonely Angels.

The team of 20 aged between four and 19, will take it in turns to dance for a period of around an hour, with some dressing in their competition outfits and even creating their own choreography.

Alice Reynolds, dance teacher at the academy, said: “We had to stop doing all our dance lessons obviously because of everything that’s going on.

“Five of our dancers were supposed to be going to the World Championships last weekend and that got called off.

“So rather than them sitting at home doing nothing, we wanted to put their talent to good use.

“Everyone is going to do it from their gardens or living rooms or wherever they can, but there will always be someone dancing.”

When Alice came up with the idea she was hopeful that she would get a good response from the dance school, which has only been going since December last year.

She added: “I asked if anyone wanted to do it. They’re always up for doing stuff so they all said they’d really like to do it.

“We wanted to raise money for a local charity. Everyone is raising money for the NHS, which is obviously amazing, but we wanted something more specific that is doing work in our community.

“We had a lot of messages from mums and a couple of them know the organiser at Earth’s Lonely Angels.

“They’re a local charity and they do really great things. There was a house fire where a family lost everything and they managed to get them beds, settees and hampers.

“They support people who are isolated and also those who are homeless at this time.”

Parts of the dance-a-thon will be live streamed on the academy’s Facebook and Instagram page as the whole school, as well some parents who said they might even join in, complete the 12-hour challenge that Alice says will be ‘very tiring’.

The academy has already raised more than £200, but by the end of the challenge next week, they hope to have reached their £500 target.

Donations can be made on their JustGiving page.

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