FANCY footwork was on the timetable for a group of male students at Isambard Community School today as they began rehearsals ahead of their upcoming performance with Swindon Dance.

Instead of maths and geography the nine youngsters from Year 7 to 10 were given a lesson by choreographer Merville Jones, who is one of the founding members of Phoenix Dance Company and teaches at Swindon Dance’s Youth Dance Academy.

The boys will join around 20 other male students from three other schools – Commonweal, Swindon Academy and Hardenhuish in Chippenham – when they take to the stage on Friday, June 10 for the Boys Dance Platform show.

The initiative is the brainchild of Swindon Dance to encourage more boys to take performing arts classes and Merville has been showing the students the ropes.

“It’s gone brilliant and the boys have been exceptional,” he said.

“It’s the first time I’ve met the students today and we have managed to get together four minutes of the routine done in a day, which for non-dancers is a lot of them to remember. We’ve all had a good laugh and got to know each other in the session.”

The routine revolved around the proverbial principle; see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. It also involved a lot of running, spinning and energetic movements. Afterwards the students were sent on their way to go home and relax their feet.

Merville, who has been dancing for 35 years, added: “It’s not about trying to train the boys to become dancers, it’s about life skills and things that are transferable.

“The determination and discipline they are using today, they can take that into their maths, English and geography lessons. Hopefully they will also take away the feeling of achieving something in a very short space of time.”

The students that are taking part were handpicked by head of performing arts at the school Simon Flowerdew, who started dancing at the age of 15 and has appeared in operas and been on television. He chose the boys who had demonstrated a flair for performing.

He said: “I am really looking forward to going to the platform performance and watching the school’s boys. I hope it will inspire other boys in the school to dance too.”

Katie Ballard, dance education and development coordinator for Swindon Dance, added: “The main aim of the project is to reach boys and try and encourage them to dance as much as possible and take part in classes. We already have two really success all boys youth groups at Swindon Dance and they meet every Thursday.

“The platform dance will be quite an experience for them as some of them have never performed before.”