Bollywood dancing lights up Scarning school for Diwali

The glitz and glamour of Bollywood came to Scarning primary school in a special assembly to celebrate the festival of Diwali.

The festival of lights celebrates the Hindu new year and the school took advantage of having its own Indian dance instructor among the parents to stage a exciting and colourful performance.

Tina Vallance lives in Dereham but was born into a Hindu/Sikh culture and grew up surrounded by Bollywood style dancing.

She is an accountant by trade but earlier this year she set up her own dance classes and one of her first clients was the school in Scarning where her son attends.

'I have been doing an after school club with the girls and boys since the summer term teaching them Bollywood and Bhangra dance and it has been really popular,' she said. 'They love it because the music is very modern, like R&B or hip hop.

'For the performance we dressed up in far east outfits and I did a solo and then traditional Diwali dances with the children. Afterwards we got the parents up on stage as well.'

Headteacher Grahame Chambers said the children had 'such a lot of fun' and it was great for the whole school to see the story of Diwali performed in all its vibrancy.

'It was lovely for the school to be able to offer a multi-cultural assembly seeing real people celebrating something different,' he said.

For more information about Tina's dance lessons visit the website www.jayadance.co.uk.