Fitness trends don’t stay in lanes anymore. One minute, it’s strength training mixed with Pilates. The next dance cardio done in heels. Sometimes it’s yoga x surfing hybrids, others, club-inspired conditioning that feels more like a night out than a gym class.
But one thing is constant. In contrast to the “no pain, no gain” ethos of years gone by, there’s been a steady shift away from punishment-based workouts and towards something more embodied – spaces where sweat is still part of it, but so is rhythm, expression, even a bit of theatre.
Movement is no longer just about output. It’s about experience. And increasingly, it’s about how it feels to be in your body while you’re doing it.
That shift is where Fitesque sits. (Or, should that be struts?)
Created by Australian dance and fitness educator Melony Cherrett, it blends burlesque-inspired movement with structured dance fitness, landing somewhere between choreography and conditioning. It doesn’t try to separate the performance from the workout. Instead, it lets them exist in the same space, where rhythm leads and everything else follows.
There is structure underneath it, but it doesn’t feel rigid. There is a technique, but it doesn’t feel clinical. What you notice first is the energy of it – the way movement is designed to be felt before it is perfected. And that changes how you enter it.
Movement that doesn’t ask for perfection first
Traditional fitness often asks for control before anything else. Control your form. Control your breath. Control the outcome.
Fitesque works the other way around. It builds through rhythm and repetition, allowing the body to learn before the mind starts over-correcting. Steps are layered through timing and flow, so movement becomes something you absorb rather than something you constantly assess.
At first, there is usually a moment of adjustment. Not because it is overly complex, but because it does not rely on the same kind of tight mental tracking most workouts demand. You are not counting in the same way. You are not breaking everything down. You are moving, then refining through sensation rather than instruction.
And gradually, something shifts. The internal commentary drops. The checking, the adjusting, the second-guessing softens into the background. What replaces it is simpler. You start to feel the rhythm more than you think about it.
All about the energy
There is something about doing this kind of movement in a group of women that changes the experience entirely.
It is not about synchronisation. No one is trying to match anyone else. But there is a shared permission in the space – to take up room, to move with more intention, to stop pulling everything inward.
That shift is subtle at first. Shoulders loosen. Movements get a little less contained. People stop rehearsing and start responding. And because no one is performing for anyone else, the energy turns inward in a different way. Not self-critical. Just present.
It stops feeling like a class you are doing and starts feeling like a space you are in.
Where dance, fitness and performance blur
Part of what makes Fitesque interesting is the way it pulls from multiple worlds without fully belonging to any of them.
There is the structure of fitness – the conditioning, the repetition, the cardiovascular demand. There is the language of dance – rhythm, sequencing, flow. And then there is something borrowed from performance: attitude, presence, a sense that movement can carry a bit of narrative without needing to explain itself.
It carries a hint of that early-2000s pop performance energy – confident, stylised, a little playful – but it is stripped of the idea that it needs to be watched to matter.
The performance element is still there. It just lands differently now. It is not external. It is internal. It is what happens when you stop holding back in your own movement. And that is where the appeal sits.
Why fitseque resonating now
Fitesque is landing at a time when women’s fitness preferences are continuing to evolve away from rigid structure and towards more expressive formats.
There is less interest in workouts that feel like correction and more interest in ones that feel like expansion – physically, emotionally, even socially. The focus is shifting from how the body is shaped to how it is experienced.
Within that context, Fitesque doesn’t feel like a trend so much as a response. It still delivers a physical workout, but it does so through rhythm and expression rather than strict repetition or intensity alone.
It is fitness, but it is also atmosphere.
Backed by BeWell Brands and fitness industry leader Elaine Jobson, the concept is now being developed for wider rollout through instructor training, positioning it to move beyond boutique studios and into a broader fitness landscape that is already leaning towards dance-led and hybrid movement formats.
But even as it scales, the core appeal remains unchanged. It is not about performance in the external sense. It is about how movement feels when you stop editing it mid-way through.
