Mother-and-son team grows welcoming dance fitness communities across Teesside

Vibe Dance Fitness, launched in Billingham in 2023, now brings inclusive, low-pressure weekly classes to Billingham, Middlesbrough and Yarm, led by founder Matt Campbell alongside his mum, Chris.

What began as a shared family love of dance has grown into a local fitness community built around music, confidence and belonging.

Vibe Dance Fitness was launched by Billingham-based founder and instructor Matt Campbell in January 2023. Matt now works alongside his mum, Chris, who teaches with Vibe as part of a growing team delivering accessible dance fitness for people who may not feel at home in a traditional gym or dance studio.

The idea has roots in an earlier family experience. Matt and Chris both took part in Ashley Banjo's Big Town Dance, the Sky 1 community dance project filmed in Stockton-on-Tees with Ashley Banjo and Diversity. Matt says the experience showed him how powerful dance could be when the emphasis was on people joining in rather than performing perfectly.

“The bit that stayed with me was seeing ordinary people realise dance could belong to them too. Vibe is built around that same idea. You do not have to arrive confident, fit or knowing the steps. You can just turn up, move in a way that works for you and be part of the room.”
 

A class built for people who want to move, not perform

Vibe sessions combine a warm-up, accessible follow-along choreography, full routines and a cool-down, using pop, dance and club favourites. People choose their own intensity, adapt movements and take breaks whenever they need them. Classes are £5 pay-as-you-go with no contract, and no dance experience is needed before you come along.

Pushing back against fitness gatekeeping

Matt says Vibe was partly built as an antidote to the more toxic side of fitness culture: the idea that exercise should be punishment, that a “fit” body has one particular look, or that people need to become thinner, more confident or more capable before they have earned a place in the room.

For Vibe, inclusion also means challenging quieter forms of gatekeeping. Fitness marketing can place heavy emphasis on weight loss, transformation photos, appearance, performance and keeping up, leaving bigger-bodied, disabled, older, anxious or inexperienced people feeling that a class was designed for somebody else.

Vibe takes a body-neutral approach. Different body types are visible and welcome, movements can be adapted without apology, and there are no weigh-ins, calorie-burn targets, “before and after” culture or expectation that everybody should move in the same way. Participants choose their own intensity, rest when they need to and judge a session by how it felt rather than by how they looked doing it.

The aim is not to promise that dance will change somebody’s body. It is to make movement available without asking people to shrink themselves, dress a certain way or prove that they are already fit enough to belong.

“Your body does not have to change before you deserve to enjoy movement. Fitness should not be gatekept by size, age, confidence, ability or whether you own the right clothes. We want people to walk in as they are and feel that the class was built with them in mind.”

Current weekly classes
• Billingham - Sundays, 6pm-7pm. S&N Dance Centre, Station Road, Billingham.
• Middlesbrough - Wednesdays, 6pm-7pm. Dormans Club, Oxford Road, Linthorpe, Middlesbrough, TS5
5DT.
• Yarm - Thursdays, 7.30pm-8.30pm. Yarm Wellness, High Church Wynd, Yarm on Tees, TS15 9BQ.
 

Working together as a family

Working with Chris helps keep Vibe grounded in the atmosphere Matt wanted from the start: welcoming, human and social, with room for nerves, mistakes and laughter. The classes are aimed at nervous beginners, people returning to movement, experienced dancers who want something relaxed, and anyone who simply wants an hour of good music and company.

“Working with my mum makes it special. We know what it is like to be the people in the room having a go, and now we get to watch people arrive nervous, make friends and leave smiling. That sense of community is the bit I am proudest of.”

For more information visit vibedancefitness.co.uk
 

Supported places are offered at selected sessions so that cost does not have to be the reason somebody
misses out.