LINDY HOP TEACHERS
Elze Visnevskyte & Peter Kertz
Elze and Peter are maybe just the right amount of crazy you’ve been looking for. She comes from Lithuania, while he comes from Los Angeles and together, they have this Euro-American style all about fun and connectedness. Their musicality, playfulness, and creativity are not just parts of their light-hearted personalities as dancers, but also as instructors. For them, Lindy Hop is much more than only leading and following… it’s dancing… trying to feel your partner… and in the meantime having a freaking great time! Their energy is contagious and their class material is stimulating. Be prepared for loud laughs, crazy fun, and exciting new moves!
Serpil Yıldırım & Erol Akinci
Serpil is a passionate dancer, teacher and a performer from İzmir, Turkey. Serpil mostly inspired by Afro-Cuban Jazz and she enjoyes to express herself through jazz dance. She is also the founder of Lindy Hop İzmir and one of the organizers of İzmir Swing Festival and a member of the Lindy Hop Team Turkey.
Erol is an admirer of 'bop style' of music and dance. His understanding shifted over the years, towards respecting and understanding the culture and history. Researching into bebop/bop dancing for the past few years, he choreographed several 'bop-influenced' performances. Being a part of the local community, he tries to re-shape the approach towards jazz dancing. He shares his free perspective about technique and style, focusing on improvisation and groove.
Erol is an admirer of 'bop style' of music and dance. His understanding shifted over the years, towards respecting and understanding the culture and history. Researching into bebop/bop dancing for the past few years, he choreographed several 'bop-influenced' performances. Being a part of the local community, he tries to re-shape the approach towards jazz dancing. He shares his free perspective about technique and style, focusing on improvisation and groove.
Ariadna Beltran & Simon Bressanelli
Ari and Simon are swing dance teachers, performers and choreographers. Primarily focused on Lindy Hop and Authentic Jazz. They are passionate about these dance forms, especially in the context of their cultural traditions, their values and their place as an artform.
Working together since 2016, they are now based in Madrid working globally as well as growing their online platform through Patreon.
They are an energetic and rhythmical couple who love the interplay between the individual, the music and the partner during a dance and how it can develop into a beautiful conversation.
They hold titles from the International Lindy Hop Championships, The Savoy Cup and The Korean Lindy Hop Championships, among others. Their passion for the dance and the culture of swing has grown with them and is something they constantly strive to develop and express, whether in classes, on stage or in competition.
Eugenia Diaco & Santiago Arana
Santi and Euge are Lindy Hop and Solo Jazz dancers from Argentina, they have been sharing their enthusiasm for jazz music and dance since 2017.
Inspired by the early Lindy Hop dancers, Santi and Euge keep developing a way of dancing that combines classical style with fresh energy.
They currently compete and teach in South America and Europe, sharing their work and learning.
For them, Lindy Hop means values of growth and community, a space for reflection and creativity.
Irene Ragusini & Malik Derin Küçümen
Irene is a visual artist and a dancer. She started from ballet, but jazz dance attracted her to the space for personal expression and freedom of movement. She is also interested in rich dance history, its connection to the contemporary world and its aesthetics - researching on visual artists, videographers and photographers of the jazz era. She also loves to explore the multilayered nature of jazz music (such as african, latin, bebop elements etc.) and its relation to jazz dance. She gets inspired by reading and watching clips of the original dancers and besides solo jazz and lindy hop she loves challenging herself with tap dance training, with an ever learning attitude. She teaches at international festivals around Europe as well as competing, with many placements. Recently she started teaching and creating with Malik Küçümen with whom they won 3rd place at the All Stars Classic category in ILHC Europe, 2022. After having experienced two quite vibrant scenes for a while (Ghent & Stockholm), Irene is currently based in Athens, where she is coaching and training with the lindy hop and chorus line teams of her project Athens Authentic Jazz Dance.
Malik is a lindy hop and jazz dancer, teacher and choreographer from Istanbul, Turkey. He started dancing in high school with contemporary and ballet, and later studied musical theater. Next to social dancing, performing and teaching has become another motivation for him to dance and share. He enjoys dancing to many genres of jazz music such as rhythm & blues and bebop. His music master studies include researching the history of jazz and especially about the daily lives of jazz musicians and lindy hop/jazz/tap dancers. The Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, the Nicholas Brothers and the Hoofers tap dancers are some of his all-time favorite performers. In his classes Malik likes and tries to share his understanding of African American Jazz dances with a respect to the past and he enjoys mixing classic steps with variations and working on movement technique and clear rhythms.
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SOLO JAZZ TEACHERS
Joris Focquaert
Joris Focquaert comes from Belgium, and is currently living in Berlin, Germany.
While he has a background in physical theater (The Commedia School, Copenhagen, 2007), his road evolved towards dancing and more specifically African American Jazz dances like e.g. the Lindy Hop, and a dance we often refer to as 'Authentic' Jazz, mixed with The Charleston.
As a dance instructor, he gives his best, always seeking answers in the roots of Jazz. Learning to play the clarinet and trombone has developed his understanding of Jazz as movement.
Founder of Crazy Legs Dance School in Ghent (Belgium), the city where he honed his skills, he looks forward to seeing what’s there for him around the corner, curious for new projects.
He is excited to be part of Dragon Swing 2023!
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Bands
The Hop 'sh Bam Connection
This septet plays the real swing from the period between the 20 ties and 50 ties.
The biggest inspiration is the repertoire of the marvellous ballrooms of the thirties, as for example the savoy ballroom in New York.
Hop – sh- bam plays tunes on which lindy hop dancers could go crazy.
The septet plays the beautiful standards of the swing –era, and also some tunes of the exciting bigband period, or even some tunes of the new Orleans repertoire, more Charleston inspired. As the bandleader, Marie – Anne, is a swingdancer herself, she knows how to put an inspiring and diverse setlist together ! She adapts to what s happening on the dancefloor …
Let’s call it : an excellent band, full of energy, whit a big focus on the pure art of swingmusic. Nice to listen, nice to dance, … move and groove !
The Schwings Band
The Schwings are a vintage swing and New Orleans style jazz band hailing all the way from the capital of Lithuania, Vilnius! Founded in 2011 by legendary jazz musician and multi-instrumentalist Remis Rančys. The Schwings rapidly rose to popularity in Lithuanian jazz festivals, clubs and lindy hop dance events. Initially playing golden standards of swing, Brazilian, and gypsy jazz, the band has since begun recording original compositions.
Their recent albums Plazi, Good Thing and Plombyras reached the #1 bestseller in swing/jazz category on Bandcamp - a popular online music distributor.
Spotify data suggests, that most of The Schwings fans live in the USA and Germany.
Now performing internationally, they have ‘schwung’ their Lithuanian spirit across the UK, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Greece, Poland, Estonia, Sweden and Finland.
With music as diverse as the seasons - the Schwings can burn like summer, be nostalgic as autumn, pure as winter and uplifting as spring – all in the space of one evening.
Lazy Swing Band
Lazy Swing Band is a Krakow based band, which has already ignited many audiences with its music. The eight-person squad, made up of professional musicians, has been playing regularly since 2016 for the Polish and foreign community of Lindy Hop dancers and does not stop improving its repertoire to make everyone who appears on the dance floor happy. LSB had the honor to perform at such festivals as: Dragon Swing Festival, Kraków Lindy Invasion, GoAt Swing, Transwingvania Brasov Lindy Exchange and many others, such as the famous Kraków Summer Jazz Festival. You can also find evidence that Lazy Swing Band is not so lazy on YouTube or Spotify.
If you come to their concert - you won't regret it!
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Shirt Tail Stompers
They have been recognised as one of Europe's best social dance bands. Formed in 2010 for the London Lindy Exchange, they have played numerous dance camps and shows in over 25 countries all over the world. They have a passion for swing music and movement, with their extensive knowledge and experience of social dancing, they are definitely the band to dance to in 2023.
Truly appreciating the art of swing and knowing its place in history, they are heavily influenced by Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, Count Basie and many other greats from the swing and trad jazz era of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s.
The year before the pandemic alone saw them playing for dancers in Sweden, Thailand, France, South Korea, Hungary, The Netherlands, Greece, Norway, Italy and throughout the UK to rave reviews.