Zumba Gold is a Latin-based fitness dance program. Instructor Lucy Croft teaches 13 classes a week.
"What we promote is to ditch the workout and join the party, so people feel like they're working out in a party environment and its kind of fun with the music," said Croft.
The Advocate BroMenn Medical Center Spirit of Women held its third annual "Day of Dance" Saturday. The event celebrates the benefits of dance and exercise to prevent heart disease.
"We want to help people understand that dancing - that exercise can be fun," Helen Wright of the BroMenn Medical Center. "A lot of times people say, ugh I have to exercise, so we're looking at new ways."
From Zumba Gold to ballet leaves many dancers wondering what dance exactly burns the most calories?
Croft says that Zumba Gold can easily burn as many as 500 to 1000 calories. Different types of hula dancing, surprisingly, may even burn more.
"Taschen can burn anywhere around 1200 in a sitting . . . In an hour," said hula instructor Johnette Kamo Kunani Palumbo.
Ken Bello is a fourth generation ballet dancer and says that his lineage goes back to the St. Petersburg Russia. His students are rarely short of a workout themselves.
"If we do a full length performance, it's easy to burn a couple thousand calories in a night," Bello said. "Dancers do eat also, but we work out so much it doesn't show . . . It doesn't show until we retire basically."
For these performers, it's more than just a dance. It's a way to stay healthy.
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