A TALENTED team of young dancers are currently in Spain competing to be the best in the world.

The 24-strong team from Lisa Marie Performing Arts in Poppleton and Tadcaster qualified for Team England earlier this year and are now in San Sebastian in Spain competing for the title.

To win their coveted place on Team England, the dancers competed in the English qualifiers against the very best young dancers in the country. The team, who train in Poppleton, York, went on to qualify with soloists and also in the senior age section in both the Large Jazz Group and Large Commercial Group categories.

Gabrielle Russell, the team's creative director said the journey to the Dance World Cup has not been straightforward at times with passport delays and multiple flight cancellations due to the chaos in the UK travel industry.

She said there were frantic calls to MP’s and even 10, Downing Street to ensure passports arrived in time which has put added pressure on the team.

Gabrielle said: "The team have trained so hard and I am beyond proud that they are the first team from North Yorkshire to qualify for the Finals and I will just relax when we are all in Spain safely next week."

They originally qualified in two categories, Senior Jazz and Senior Commercial, along with four soloists, Eleigh Kirby - ballet and jazz duet, Daray Russell, jazz, Ava Morton, commercial and Tilly Dawson, jazz duet.

However, they have since also qualified in Senior Street Dance too and ten-year-old Nell Turnbull has been invited to a special Ballet Supergroup, comprising of some of the best ballet dancers in the country.

To enable every young person to attend, Lisa Marie Performing Arts has conducted extensive fundraising and announced last week at a huge send off party that the team had raised nearly a whopping £22,000.

Lisa Dakin, Founder of Lisa Marie Performing Arts said: "I want to personally thank everyone who gone above and beyond to support this team of talented young dancers, in particular our parents who have fundraiser relentlessly and the generous businesses who have sponsored us."

Lisa said she would like to thank the following organisations for their generous sponsorship: Hallfield Road Motors , JR Electrical, Athena HR, Yorkshire Vehicle Solutions, Sheppee, The Poppleton centre, GSS architecture, Peter Thompson of York, Heather Johnson Home Interiors, DRS, York Boutique Lets and Haxby Shotokan Karate Club.