Music

You Need To Watch Alex Dyson’s Wonderfully Chaotic ZOOMba Class

I’m not saying that watching ⁦Alex Dyson dance to Gasolina cured my depression, but I’m not not saying that.

by Jules LeFevre  7 April 2020
alex dyson zoomba class photo

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Yesterday, Alex ‘Ratdog’ Dyson announced, with a toothbrush duct-taped to the side of his head, that he’d be getting into the digital fitness game by leading a public ‘ZOOMba’ class.

It was a simple idea: log on at 10am, sign into the zoom class, and try and keep up with Dyson as he heroically lead his charges through 30 minutes of high octane ZOOMba. So, of course, we joined in.

The toothbrush precariously hanging on. Photo via Zoom.

One hundred people made it into the Zoom chat, which at first — if you’ve ever been on a mass Zoom meeting before — was completely bananas, with bursts of random dialogue shouted out across the country. Thankfully, Ratdog managed to mute the masses, and we were off.

Dyson’s moves were fluid and graceful, as he guided us through tracks from Major Lazer, Usher, and a disturbingly sexy ‘Gasolina’ by Daddy Yankee.

The dance sequences were inspired: the “double trumpet” move was surprisingly difficult, as it turns out that pretending to blow a trumpet while moving at the speed of light is exhausting, as was the “motorbike/lasso”, in which you mimed riding a motorbike while trying to lasso an imaginary horse. It was…alarmingly sensual.

PNAU’s ‘Wild Strawberries’ got a run as well, as Dyson encouraged us all to ‘pick the strawberries’ and then dramatically pretend to eat them.

Then came the Vengaboys’ ‘Boom Boom Boom Boom!!’, in which we all spun around imitating an aeroplane, which caused a few people to topple and fall over, dizzy.

Sultry ‘Gasolina’ moves en masse.

And it must be said, watching dozens of people faithfully follow along to the ‘Wait The Tables’ move during Usher’s ‘DJ Got Us Falling In Love’ is a memory I will not soon forget.

Towards the end, Dyson made the unfortunate decision to unmute the meeting, which caused a hail of distorted noise to pour from tinny computer speakers.

Most people quickly slammed themselves back on mute, but others remained at full volume — leading to some choice dialogue coming through (“Yeah man I’m fucking dead I dunno how people do this”) and the suspicious sound of what could have been a whipped cream canister.

The ending was nearly disastrous, with Dyson’s faithful toothbrush being torn from his sweaty forehead — but he rapidly secured it, and we all freestyled to DJ Sammy’s classic ’90s dance track ‘Heaven’, the closing track of the session.

“Remember when we all used to go to clubs?!” Dyson screamed, flailing his arms about with frightening abandon.

Maybe I’ve been stuck inside too long, but this was hot.

The 30 minutes up, with a thin sheen of sweat across his brow, Dyson bid goodbye to an outpouring of gratitude from blurry screens across the country — a genuinely, thoroughly, heartwarming moment in this bleak tunnel of shittiness.

See you back here (hopefully) next week, now excuse me while I go and nail this double trumpet move.