A Liverpool zumba instructor who was recorded dancing at a bus stop on Great Homer Street has gone viral on social media.
The video was captured by Hayley Louise and was reposted on the "Angies Liverpool" Twitter feed. Already the video has had nearly 600 retweets, over 4.5k likes, and over 300 quote-tweets.
In the video Orlando Tirelli, 49, who is wearing a red bubble coat and backpack, begins small by stepping and moving his arms up and down, as a member of the public walks by. He soon picks up the pace by utilising the whole of the pavement up to the Argos store behind.
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Stretching his arms towards the sky, the trained dancer, originally from London, begins to spin around, kick out his legs, and move his arms in isolated intervals. The song he was dancing to was actually "You Can't Stop The Beat" from the musical Hairspray.
It is not the first time he has made it into the Liverpool ECHO, he once had a dance off with Drag Race star Alyssa Edwards back in 2018. Alyssa Edwards, who appeared on the fifth series of RuPaul's Drag Race, was stunned after she stopped her one-woman show in Fusion to invite the Orlando onto the stage.
The ECHO spoke to Orlando to see what prompted his morning performance at the bus stop. He told the ECHO: "This is what I am all about, look at the times we are in at the moment, there is a war, we have just come out of a pandemic, so to be able to spread joy and happiness is genuinely amazing to me. It is wonderful, I am completely gooped [by the reaction to it], I am loving it though.
"I am 49, 50 in July, and I thought I don’t want to be sat there watching day time TV, so I got to the gym and got myself together. I had just finished in the nearby gym and I was on a natural high from the ‘Move It’ show that I had just attended in London, and I helped a friend teach a zumba class so I was just in a happy mood."
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He added: "I needed to warm up my body because it was cold standing there, and I decided to dance, and that was it really. I am a trained dancer, and I was dancing for around 30-years. At the moment I am trying to get my exercise to music qualification.
"This social media stuff is a bit overwhelming though, I am learning, but I am pretty old school in that respect. This has made me want to do something, like raise money for the crisis in Ukraine, Fallen Angels Dance Company who help people dance through their recovery, whether that be mental health recovery or things like addiction.
"When I moved from London I was part of the Pineapple crew, and I just started dancing in the studios. I love dancing, I am a huge fan of it, I love it so much, I never lost the passion for it.
"There are a lot of people suffering out there at the moment, and to be able to even make one person happy, smile, or have a little bit of joy, I will have done my job. I have surprised myself, this was a happy moment for me, so I am glad my happiness in that moment has spread to everyone else."
Orlando, and his husband Daniel Northover, are very much a big part of the LGBTQIA+ community in Liverpool, they both, with friends, run the "Mersey Bears" which is a social community group for men, and provides networking opportunities also. The pair moved to Liverpool six-years ago and said that they are "adopted scousers" from their neighbours.
Orlando told the ECHO: "My husband Daniel works for Shelter [at their Merseyside Hub in Anfield] so it really would be great to use this as a platform to do more, maybe I could be the dancing bus-stop man or something, and just dance at different bus stops in the city. If it goes further it would have to capitalise on it, from a charitable point of view obviously, to be able to help more people, I have the experience, enrgy and passion to do it. In a position like this, you should want to help people, it is of utmost importance to me to help people."
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