Being a dancer is a big workout, but some young performers in Queens make it look easy. NY1's Cheryl Wills filed this report.
For teen performers, to pull off this tap dance routine in perfect sync takes hours of exercise and practice.
Dancers with The Edge School of the Arts and the Ultimate Dance Academy make it look easy.
"It takes a lot of hard work for you to be able to do certain things," says dancer Tanisia Land.
Moves like spinning and all of this fancy footwork before a live audience at the Jamaica Performing Arts Center.
These young people know the importance of eating the right foods.
"Eating the wrong foods would definitely slow you down and make you not able to keep up and do what we do because it's so rigorous," says dancer Angelique Rivera.
"If I don't work out then where's all that extra flub going to go. It's not going to disappear if I don't work out," says dancer Taryn Lamb.
These girls always work out rigorously because they know when it's showtime, there is no room for error and there's no time to get tired.
"You need stamina, you need balance, you need agility—all of that helps you stay fit and be able to do the task at hand," says dancer Anesia Whitfield.
This show is called "Four Little Girls: The Dance-ology." It is a theatrical interpretation of the four Sunday school students who were killed during a church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. The emotional routine dramatizes both the pain and the perserverance of the civil rights movement.
"You want people to be impressed by what you are doing so you've got to stretch," says dancer Brianna McCollin.
"So you can stay slender, fit and you don't get what we call thunder thighs," says dancer Mia Brice.
No thunder thighs to be found on this stage—but the girls do bring a rumble of excitement with their jubilant production.
These dancers say they have developed healthy habits which they plan to practice for the rest of their lives, giving them something to shout about.