Salsa dancers in Oxford are hoping to spin, twist and twirl their way into the record books — and raise money for a good cause at the same time.

A group of dancers at Oxford University called Rueda Komrades, are planning to dance a form of salsa called Rueda for 12 hours straight and are hoping to raise £12,000 for the John Radcliffe Hospital-based Oxford Project to Investigate Memory and Ageing (Optima).

The event, at Wolfson College in Linton Road, between 1pm and 1am on Saturday, February 21, has been organised by salsa teacher Bea Prentiss, 60, from Temple Cowley.

She said: “I teach salsa and I dance it. It does a lot for the people who dance it but it doesn’t do much for anybody else.

“I was trying to come up with an idea where salsa could help the wider community.”

Rueda is danced in a circle with couples swapping partners in a series of complicated and high speed patterns.

An attempt was previously made to set a world record for the most number of people dancing a Rueda circle in Norway but it proved difficult to manage in such large numbers.

So Ms Prentiss came up with the idea of trying to keep the circle going for as long as possible.

Former Oxford University English student Hannah Thomas, 25, is a member of the Rueda Komrades and will be dancing at the event.

She said: “Younger people often take memory for granted and don’t realise the cruelly debilitating effects that Alzheimer’s can have.

“A simple example is that without a good memory, dancing would be really difficult.”

People can sign up to take part for as little or as long as they like in half hour slots, either with a couple or without.

Dancers from Sheffield, Cambridge and London are expected to take part.

Anyone who would like to find more about dancing in the event, or sponsor the dancers, should email marathon.info @googlemail.com, or go to Facebook group Rueda Dance Marathon.

fbardsley@oxfordmail.co.uk