Telford troupe dancing their way through to competition final

Urban Outsteppers dance school has only been running in Telford since August but has progressed to the next stage of the Team Star UK talent contest.

The team taking part in the competition ranges in age from eight up to 16 years old.

The choreographer and founder of Urban Outsteppers is Chanelle Green, who has appeared on Got to Dance and Britain's Got Talent.

She said she is incredibly proud of her young dancers and what they have achieved in such a short space of time.

The 23-year-old, who lives in Newport, teaches primarily at a base in Halesfield, but also has classes in her home town.

She said: "The kids went to Birmingham on February 4 to take part in the first audition. And now they are through to the regional final and will be competing against the winners from all the other auditions across the region.

"So you will have kids from Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Walsall, but also places like Southampton and Northampton." For the initial audition, the group did a dance to a Beyonce Mega Mix.

But this week they began rehearsals for a new dance for the next stage which Chanelle said is already going really well.

The next auditions will be held at the NEC on April 8 and the winner will be decided with a weighting of 40 per cent audience votes and 60 per cent judges' votes. Chanelle said: "I'm really confident, even if they don't get through it is still an excellent experience, especially for their first competition."

At the moment, Urban Outsteppers has 35 to 40 dancers and Chanelle juggles her choreography a full-time job in merchandising for JD Sports and her own freelance dancing, which has seen her booked for modelling photoshoots and to appear in music videos.

She said: "I have a great team of parents who really help out and rush left, right and centre to get my printing or T-shirts because I work full time.

"I've had parents saying how much the children have changed in their confidence and making new friends since they started dancing."