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Here's how Jessica Pancoe stacks up against Nico Archambault, her favourite dancer on the reality show So You Think You Can Dance Canada.

Mr. Archambault - the 24-year-old from Montreal who's competing in the show's season finale on Sunday - spent years honing his trademark blend of hip hop and contemporary dance. Ms. Pancoe, a 31-year-old community fundraiser from Ottawa, used to tap dance ... when she was 12.

Every week, Mr. Archambault nails two new routines and battles against the best all-round dancers in the country. After 10 weeks of classes alongside sullen teenagers, Ms. Pancoe and her friend, Heather Cardamore, mastered one five-minute hip hop routine.

"And we were bad," Ms. Pancoe said, laughing. "But it was fun."

Across the country, hit shows such as Dancing with the Stars, So You Think You Can Dance, America's Best Dance Crew and films such as Planet B-Boy are inspiring regular Canadians to say: I do think I can dance!

Sure, some call their moves "terrible," and others have never heard of a grand jeté. Most are old enough to remember when M.C. Hammer's trademark "running man" won you style points at the high-school dance.

But "next thing you know, you're in this hip hop class learning the rocksteady," said Mauri Smith, a 30 year-old geologist from Calgary. "Unfortunately it's the only move I've remembered."

Since the shows began generating buzz three years ago, many dance instructors have noticed spikes in enrolment in their beginner adult dance classes - particularly for hip hop, contemporary and jazz. The programs showcase a wide range of dance styles - from ballroom to krump to jazz - as not only a legitimate art form, the instructors say, but as a fun mode of expression and exercise.

"Sometimes we say, 'Thank God for TV and Hollywood,' " said Melissa Nascimento, a dance instructor at City Dance Corps in Toronto. "These shows do generate hype around dance."

Earlier this week, she led a group of 15 women, ranging in age from 20 to 44, through a 90-minute "absolute beginner" hip hop class. More than half said they tuned in to dance shows at least periodically - and if the shows didn't inspire them to take part, they at least made them appreciate what they were in for.

"They make it look easy on TV, but I'm pretty sure it's not," said Mansoora Khalifa, 23, who had dropped in for her first class.

The television shows have been a boon for business, said executive director Estelle Nicolaidis. "Our contemporary classes have been around for such a long time, but now there's such a big demand for the beginner classes. Same thing for the hip hop."

Last year, the school offered classes at which students learned a new routine each week from the U.S. version of So You Think You Can Dance. They also launched a Hollywood dance series: A three-session course on how to shake it like Beyoncé in her new video, Single Ladies, was so popular this fall that it's been brought back for a second run this month.

Other dance instructors say they've noticed changes in the demographics of their classes. Katarina Rajkovic, who runs Dance Kraze Productions in Toronto and Mississauga, says male dancers such as Mr. Archambault, whose cheeky grin and cute French accent have won him legions of female fans, have made dance seem more socially acceptable for guys.

About 30 per cent of her adult students are men, she says, up from 10 per cent or less a couple of years ago. "We get people saying, 'I'm sick of just standing around. I want to dance and not feel stupid,' " she said.

Others are just looking for something fun to do with friends.

Amy Segal, a television producer in Toronto, says she and her friends loved Dance Life, a reality show about professional dancers trying to make it in Los Angeles' cutthroat dance business. "We were just psychotically obsessed with it," she says. "And we were like: We should take a dance class."

They bought oversized sweatpants and, through a private instructor, learned a routine from a Justin Timberlake video. Mostly it was embarrassing, she said. "There were mirrors everywhere."

But a year later, they still have fun busting out some moves at the clubs, she said. "If I'm drunk enough I'll grab [my friend] and we'll do a full routine."