Zumba Fitness Dance Propelled by New Star

To take the boredom out of floor aerobics routines, many fitness centers are going beyond just adding high energy sound systems to motivate their pupils, but to offer different types of dance. Jazzercise has been successfully doing this for years to sounds of popular music. However, higher energy dance forms such as hip hop have become popular, and now a new Latin variety is exploding on the scene.

It's called Zumba and it rides on the electric appeal of a rising star, a 33-year-old native Columbian named Alberto Perez. The dance was made up by Perez by accident one day when he forgot his music tapes, so he just ad-libbed to what he did naturally, a fast beat blend of salsa, merengue, calypso, cumbia and other Latin tempos.

''I've been 30 years in the fitness business, and I've never seen this before…''

- Peter Cicale, owner of Olympia Gym in Aventura, Florida

Alberto Perez, aka "Beto", is a real Cinderella story, having risen from the slums of Cali, Colombia, to fame as an international fitness star.

The routine caught on immediately with his students and has made its way from Bogata to Miami and is now spreading across the U.S.

Some of the U.S. fitness centers that offer Zumba are:

Body & Soul Gym
Portovita
Williams Island
Olympia Gym
The Point
Crunch - South Beach
US1 Fitness

''I've been 30 years in the fitness business, and I've never seen this before,'' said Peter Cicale, owner of Olympia Gym in Aventura, Florida where Pérez gives jam-packed classes to about 400 people a week.

Zumba is destined to be more widespread with upcoming certifications. Pérez has already certified a half-dozen Zumba instructors holding classes in Chicago, New York and Dallas.

Pérez will also be training a group of 150 Zumba instructors in steps such as the ''Salsa Lunge'' and the arm-swinging ''Machete,'' with an eye toward later selling Zumba Studio franchises nationwide.

Keep an Eye Out for Zumbawear

A "how-to book" is planned for fall release, along with new infomercials in Spanish and English, new videos for next year and a line of neon-colored, body-hugging fitness fashions dubbed Zumbawear later this year.

In the meantime, Pérez keeps packing fans into the 10 South Florida gyms where he gives lively beginner and advanced sessions to about 2,000 people a week, sandwiched between promotional appearances that have taken him all over the country.

At Olympia Gym, the classes are so popular that participants start arriving 20 minutes early to stake out a spot on the floor. Owner Cicale has to put up a barricade to close off access. And that's not all.

''I bought the karate studio next door and knocked down the wall to make the space bigger -- we get 150 people in here on Saturdays. I put in a wood floor for dancing. And new AC -- it was like a furnace in here,'' he said. ``But it was worth it. Memberships have increased substantially.''

A Star Rises From the Slums of Cali

Pérez's story starts in the slums of Cali, Colombia, when the movie musical Grease came to town and inspired him to dance. Soon he was giving street performances to earn cash to help his mother get by.

As his fame spread, he was contracted to give shows at parties, then to give classes. ''I would go by this dance academy and watch the girls dance through the windows,'' recalled the soft-spoken Pérez, universally known as Beto.

Source: Miami Herald

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