Ryan Francois and Jenny Thomas are widely regarded as the top Lindy Hop couple in the world today.
Their, choreographic, teaching and performing skills are constantly in demand in both the Swing Dance and Show Business world and with a string of competition victories, awards, TV and Movie credits behind them they are well respected as “The” Masters of Lindy Hop, Charleston, Jazz and Tap.
Between them their credits are varied and numerous so we’ll stick to the highlights.

Strictly Come Dancing - BBC Television
“Swing” on Broadway
Dancing With the Stars - NBC
Strictly Dance Fever - BBC
The Children's Royal Variety Performance - BBC
Malcolm X - Spike Lee and Denzel Washington
Swing Kids - Christian Bale, Robert Sean Leonard and Kenneth Branagh
Idlewild - OutKast, Andre 2000
The Polar Express - Robert Zmeckis & Tom Hanks
Frankie 95 - Tribute show for Frankie “The Legend” Manning
US Open and American Swing Dance Champions

Lucky Skillen boasts eleven years dance experience, eight of these as a Lindy Hop & Blues teacher. His energy and presence on the dance floor is matched by his global dancing exploits having started a swing scene in Taiwan, the first weekly blues venue in Denver, as well as teaching extensively across the US, Japan, Taiwan and Europe before returning to New York to teach Lindy Hop full time. Over the course of his vibrant, varied career diverse groups have felt the benefit of his flair and expertise, from the west coast blues community to New York inner city kids. 

You can read more about Lucky on his website at: http://www.luckyskillen.com

Dan specialises in Afro American partner dances and vernacular Jazz from the 1920 to 1940s. His particular specialities are Lindy Hop, Balboa and Charleston. He is a former UK Lindy Hop Champion and has made a major contribution towards popularising Balboa both here in the UK and across Europe. He has become a popular guest teacher at dance events in many different countries around the world. He has appeared in various media including the Times and Telegraph newspapers, Hello magazine, Radio 4, BBC1, BBC3, and Channel 4 television.

Dan has a relaxed and light-hearted teaching style. Being a perfectionist he emphasises lead and follow technique together with developing good basics. An excellent communicator, he has a knack for simplifying and explaining complex ideas.

Gemma was a founding member of the Cambridge Lindy Hoppers, for whom she was president for a year. She is a dancer and choreographer in the Cambridge Lindy Hoppers performance troupe and also dances in the all-girl dance group “Sophisticated Ladies”. Gemma’s main focus is on relaxed connection and natural body movement.

Trisha has been on the international scene since 2003 and is one of the most influential teachers within the UK. Her experience and tenacity has helped her to push the boundaries in everything that she does and she doesn’t give up until its right!  It is said that her teaching style is innovative, dynamic, inspiring, engaging and fun. She loves to make people laugh and feel relaxed in her class. At the end of her classes students are said to have been filled with energy, excitement with the added bonus of being given the permission to express themselves to their full potential on the dance floor and be themselves. Her speciality is ensuring that class material is balanced for followers and she has an eye for detail to see and understand what needs to be done to make things work better and for the dance to look as authentic as it can. She communicates clearly and makes the most complex of ideas and patterns simple so that students really understand how it should look and feel.
Trisha has a natural flair, unique touch and very distinctive style on the dance floor. Her focus is to recreate the look of the original dancers of the Lindy Hop, mixed with providing followers with drills, technique as well as musicality. Her experience of Tap and as an accomplished musician she helps others to understand Rhythms and how to improvise within the dance. She has had formal training in Ballet, contemporary Jazz, Tap and musical theatre since the age of 5 years old. She has 10 years experience in Lindy Hop, Blues, 20's Charleston, Authentic Jazz movement, Black Bottom, Balboa, Jive, Salsa. She has spearheaded the revival of authentic Jazz within the UK, she has trained some of the UKs newest teachers and is the artistic director and choreographer for the UKs leading performance group Swing Attack. She has also choreographed and danced in a Swing show at the world famous Royal Albert Hall in London

Chris grew up in a sleepy village of North Yorkshire before moving to Edinburgh for a degree in astrophysics. The fantastic scene of Edinburgh inspired Chris to start swing dancing and he never looked back, attending workshops and lindy exchanges around the UK. After finishing his degree and travelling around the world he settled down in Durham, with his wife Lucy, to work on a Ph.D. It didn't take long before he was fully absorbed in the Lindy Jazz scene and now runs a weekly class with Lucy in Chester-le-Street.  Chris will be teaching the beginners Lindy Hop classes at DJam with Gillian Scott.

Katja Winzeler has been teaching dance for more than 25 years. She is an expert in anatomy and movement and together with Hans Van der Horst, owns Ka-Motion, a dance and pilates studio in Gouda. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Columbia College in Chicago in Production and Choreography.

 

Her teaching has taken her around the world sharing her knowledge in India, creating choreographies in Brazil, acting as touring Director for Studio 100, Belgiums’s largest production company for major musicals and television programs.  Whether working with professionals or amateurs, individuals or groups, Katja strives to get the most out of everybody. Her passion and levity is contagious and her goal is to teach proper ergonomics with total joy for movement.

 

Her classes are eclectic, educational and energizing. Her acting training brings a dimension of theatricality to all her works.

 

Together with her husband, Hans, they teach American Swing Dance. Their fascination with kinesiology or “the science of movement” make their approach to teaching Lindy Hop exciting and effective!

 

Gillian has been dancing Lindy Hop for 4 years and Blues and Balboa for 2. Having grown up with a love of swing music she wanted to learn to dance to it so prompted by a flyer she took two left feet along to Lindy Jazz one evening in 2007 to give dancing a try.  Little did she realise that she would become totally hooked.  She travels to workshops and exchanges all over the country to improve her skills and be inspired by other dancers. She is a member of the Lindy Jazz teaching team for all 4 venues and is a member of All that Jazz performance group.  She teaches the monthly Balboa class in Durham with Andy Lewis.  Her second loveis cake-making and she has plenty of opportunity to combine the two as swing dancing and cake go hand in hand! Gillian will be teaching Lindy A with Chris Harrison at DJam.   

Nina has been dancing since discovering Swing in Tasmania almost 9 years ago & hasn't stopped looking for ways to support her dancing. She will be taking the Lindyrobics class.

Lindyrobics does exactly what it say on the tin. It's workout... but not as you know it! Nina Heaton will prep you for the day with a cheeky & fun warm up class with a little bit of stretching thrown in so muscles are nice and warm. Moving away from Swing and into damn funky music, this is a wicked wake up to  get us in the mood for a fantastic day of dancing.

After being a professional jazz pianist and university jazz combo & improvisation coach in his native Michigan, USA, Keith McGee was bitten by the Lindy bug after joining a friend's dance band and seeing the crazy fun frenzy on the floor. He has taught Lindy Hop, Balboa and Blues across North America, the UK, Continental Europe; and also DJs at high profile events throughout the year.

In 2003 Keith came to the UK, bringing in his baggage over a decade of international swing teaching expertise. He became one of the pioneers in the Swing scene in the city, which gained him the nickname "The grandfather of Lindy in Manchester, UK".

Keith doesn't hold to the idea of there being any "secrets" to dancing, seeing it as something that anyone can learn. He has a very fluid and dynamic teaching style aimed at finding solutions. While some people talk about "thinking outside the box", he throws out the box completely and empowers your creativity.

http://www.feetsofamazement.com/

Andy is in his final year of training to be a mental health nursing student. He originally trained as a circus performer at Circus Space in London and stayed there from 2002 - 2007. During his training he was introduced to Lindy Hop because of the aerial aspect of the dance. He has been taking classes for 3.5 years. He completely got the bug in his second year and attended 11 camps in 12 months. He is one of the committee members of Manchester Lindy and regularly teaches Lindy Hop in Manchester and takes part in a performance group in Manchester and have been on the United film and Zingzillas. His Lindy Hop goals are to keep dancing as much as possible, to go to as many workshops as possible and to continue to grow the fantastic scene in Manchester.

Jenny discovered Lindy Hop completely by accident at age 16, and immediately fell in love - the music, movement, and the fun and friendly people she met (and continues to meet!) along the way all inspired her to take her love to the next level - and here she is, ready to Lindy Hop 'til she drops! Jenny has been teaching and performing for around 4 years in various parts of the UK, and has been lucky enough to dance with some of the best - in 2009 she performed with 'Swing Attack' at the Royal Albert Hall, and also danced in the BBC film 'United'. More recently, Jenny has been involved in setting up 'All That Jazz', a performance group based in Durham, who will be performing for you at DJam! Jenny loves to have fun, and this shows in her teaching - her classes are fun and friendly, and aim to improve your dancing and technique whilst also having a blooming good time! At DJam, Jenny will be teaching classes with Andy Conway and also taking a couple of cheeky solo stroll sessions...hopefully see you there!

Ask any Lindy Hopper in the North of England and many of us will tell you that we started our dance journey with Sue Freeman. Sue is an incredibly talented teacher, choreographer and performer. She loves working with big teams and will be taking the choreography and hip hop workshops at DJam.

She choreographed The Rhythm of Life and more recently has been working with  Sheffield dancers for a perfomance at CAD, Creative arts and Development space. She has taught in schools, many different workshops over  the years and will be at Hullzapoppin this year.

http://www.thedanceco.co.uk/

Starting off in the world of Modern Jive in 1996, Asif then started dancing Blues & Swing in 2001. And there began his journey to the dark side, finally giving his full attentions to dancing and teaching Blues & Swing since 2008 !! London based, he has attended many events in the UK and in Europe, both as dancer, teacher and DJ; twice winner of the Amsterdam Exchange DJ battles and even teaching some Blues classes at Herrang! Having danced and taught Blues in many different dancing “cultures” (Swing, Jive, Ballroom), he has had the fortune to develop his dancing in many different ways, allowing him to dance many “styles” of Blues.
 
He now teaches regularly for Swing Patrol in London as well as being involved with many ventures around the UK and overseas.