A VIBRANT dance and performance group is being filmed for a documentary.

Dancers, singers and actors at X7eaven are being filmed during classes at its Leyton High Road studios for a documentary to feature on the Africans in London TV online channel.

Teachers at the school, which performs annually at the Walthamstow Festival, say they are really excited about being featured because there have been many success stories from the group and they hope there will be more.

Artistic director Sam Francis said: “Some I have worked with have had convictions or were a bit lost in life but had musical talents, so I brought them here and they excelled and have gone onto college and are now writing their own material.

“It is very much about building up their self-esteem. They walk differently, speak differently and are confident about who they are. Then they don't need to take a lead from someone else because they realise they are individual.”

Contemporary dance teacher Marlon Kameka said that dance groups such as X Factor television show winners, Diversity - one of whom Ike Ezekwugo is from Leytonstone - have provided positive role models for young men in Waltham Forest.

He said: “Diversity were going for years before they got their big break, so they had to work really hard for it, just like the students here do.

"But they are really positive role models because they are all young guys who have achieved great things - it is very inspirational.”

The teenagers, some of performed recently at the Harlem Festival in the USA, will be filmed rehearsing for a musical over the coming weeks.