A group of young dancers from the Isle of Man are gearing up for the chance of a lifetime to perform in front of thousands of rugby fans in London.

Unity Dance School, based in Douglas, has been offered the opportunity to work with Manchester-based company called Pro-Excel which has been around for 22 years and provide entertain at major sporting events across the country.

The young dancers from year 7 and over will be performing at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on March 23 during the Rugby Union derby game between Saracens and Harlequins, dubbed ‘the showdown’. The major sporting event will be televised and the dancers could perform in front of thousands of fans.

Linzi Brown, of Unity Dance, said: ‘As an all inclusive school, we invited everyone to attend this event that was year 7 and over and we had 31 dancers sign up to this once in a lifetime opportunity.

‘We will perform alongside others schools from the UK and Europe, in a mass movement dance performance. There will be 2,000 dancers and we are so lucky to have been chosen to join these other schools.’

But being chosen to attend was only half the battle as the school has had to raise funds to ensure all the youngsters can travel to the major event. Linzi said: ‘We have done lots of community events to help fundraise for this event and reached out to the arts council. We have worked with local rugby clubs, including supporting the Vagabonds women’s game.

‘This has really been getting the community of the island together and supporting each other. We have families that are attending along with us including grandparents so this makes it such a family and community event.’

Pro-Excel even sent over a choreographer to help the youngsters prepare for the night event and get to know the island a bit.

Linzi said: ‘They sent over to us a professional choreographer from London to work with our dancers at our studio and Katja came for a whole weekend exploring and finding out more about the Isle of Man.

‘Katja was extremely impressed with our dancers and is even coming back to work with us again which is fantastic!’