By MARY JANE SOLOMON

By MARY JANE SOLOMON

Arundel Newipapen Staff Writer A lively pop music beat resonates through the Doi%lass Community Center gymnasium as women, many of them bleary-eyed from long days at their offices, saunter to their favorite spots in the large room.

Clad in colorful leotards, sweatsuits and aerobic shoes, the women stretch and bounce casually, waiting for a signal from a perky blonde on a carpeted podium in the front of the room.

The clock reads 5:30 when instructor Kellie Weese greets her students and spins the first of an hour’s worth of records. Within minutes, the tired bodies are not only on their feet, but are swaying, marching, reaching, kicking and clapping to the music.

Weese’s class is one of scores of jazzercise sessions held regularly throughout Northern Virginia.

The dance-exercise program that began in Evanston, 111., under one woman’s initiative, celebrates its , 20th anniversary this year. , Dancer Judi Sheppard Missett founded jazzercise when she discovered that some of her jazz-dance students felt uncomfortable with the rigid discipline required in standard dance classes, but became bored with traditional exercise classes. Missett combined jazz movements with muscle-toning, aerobic and stretching exercises to create jazzercise.

Weese, an instructor for five years, began taking jazzercise nine years ago with her mother while still a high-school student.

The program ‘is very important to me” because it gives her a chance to help other people feel good about themselves, she says.

“It’s got the fun of dance — it’s jazz-dance based — but it’s not difficult to do,” explains Cindy Siler, jazzercise area manager for Loudoun, Fauquier, Clarke and Frederick counties and western Prince William County, of the program’s appeal.

An instuctor since 1981, she w as looking for a dance class w'hen she discovered Jazzercise.

“I thought I had died and gone to