Jazz with Maria Yacoob

When Dance Today magazine reviewed Maria’s beginners jazz class they said, “it would be difficult to find a better beginners class in any genre of dance.”

Maria’s beginner, general and intermediate level jazz dance classes consist of set warm-up exercises and a routine. The warm-up improves strength, flexibility, posture and alignment. Maria explains which muscles dancers use to make movements or create shapes. The exercises are performed to help students understand how to develop a dancer’s body. 

Maria’s routines use all sorts of pop music, past or present, upbeat or lyrical. Part of this experience is the enjoyable challenge of picking up steps, but the deeper aim is to enable students to put passion and feeling into their dancing so they come to love performing.

Maria’s technique class focuses on teaching standard jazz moves such as kicks, pirouettes and jetes, and putting these moves in short routines. This class is to enable dancers to progress from beginner to general level.

MARIA YACOOB

Maria has taught jazz classes at Pineapple for the past nine years. She also teaches dance in schools and universities across the country, and has choreographed for the BBC and Sky One’s Got To Dance.

To join in a class, you only need be ready 10 minutes before the class starts. If you have Pineapple membership, you do not need to pay at reception.