The young stars of a island-based dance school are aiming for to build on a successful end to 2021 and carry it on throughout this year.

The Unity Dance School is preparing to host its first concert at the Gaiety Theatre later this year, a tribute to the West End.

This comes after they finished the year with an impressive haul of trophies and final placings at a national dance competition.

The school recently entered the Cheerdance UK competitions, held at the prestigious Blackpool ballroom in November.

Despite this being the first time many of the young dancers had had the chance to perform in front of a live audience, the school took home a total of 39 trophies, including 11 first-place winning dancers, four second places and seven third places, along with a plethora of top-10 placings. Island dancers also reached several quarter and semi-finals.

Altogether, the dance school took 40 dancers, aged from five years old through to adults, to Blackpool, where they competed against experienced teams from all over the UK.

Linzi Brown, the owner and founder of the Unity Dance School, said that the successes enjoyed by the students paid tribute to their dedication and resilience throughout the past couple of years.

’All our students have trained so hard over the past year and these results were very well deserved indeed,’ said Linzi.

’Considering many of the girls who took part hadn’t been able to compete in person for nearly two year, and that some had never competed before, I think it’s incredible what they have achieved.’

Cheerdance is based on American cheerleading and is described by Linzi a is a very exuberant, energetic, bright, loud and uplifting form of performance dancing.

’We’ve had to rehearse over Zoom for so long, and a lot of the girls have been practising by themselves, and it really shows the resilience and the dedication of our kids, that they were able to do something like this.

’Also, Blackpool is a very special place to perform. ’Its one of those places that everyone wants to perform at and to do so well here is very special indeed.’

The school’s ’West End Spectacular’ takes place on April 8 and 9 at the Gaiety Theatre. Tickets are available from villagaiety.com