Michael Afolayan is a visual artist, musician, rapper, and theater and circus performer. He also works as an instructor at the Circus Days acrobatics school, teaching basic acrobatic techniques. Additionally, he is the founder of the Cultural Center of African Arts and Cultures ANASA, where he teaches polyrhythmic music of West Africa and promotes the arts as a means of communication and empowerment. Michael is an activist for human rights, particularly concerning second-generation immigrants. His work promoting intercultural dialogue and youth empowerment is truly inspiring.

Ursula Hicks began her dance training over 20 years ago in Ballet, Tap, Jazz, and later Modern and Contemporary dance. Ursula graduated with B.A. in Dance Studies from Texas Woman’s University in the summer 2013, where she studied with Marry Williford-Shade, Sarah Gamblin, Jordan Fuchs, and Gladys Keeton.
Ursula brings such musicality and enthusiasm to the dance floor, it’s no wonder that she has placed in multiple lindy hop competitions including the International Lindy Hop Championships in Washington, D.C., LindyFest in Houston, TX. , and a number of other competitions. Ursula has also been on the board of directors for The Fort Worth Swing Dance Syndicate, and served as president of The Dallas Swing Dance Society.
Ursula takes pleasure in collaborating with fellow artists and social dancing in the DFW area and enjoys teaching dance to students of all ages. She is an absolute joy to watch and learn from.

Originally from Spain, Ana and Samu run their own dance school in Berlin (Rayuela Swing) and have been teaching and dancing together for over 4 years. Their main values are respect for the history of the music and the dance, connection and communication amongst dancers, and self-expression. In their classes they strive for personal feedback, material that can be used way beyond the hours shared in the classroom, and creating an environment where fun, growth and vulnerability can co-exist.

As a dancer, Tyedric explores, presents, choreographes, teaches, competes in, and embodies Black cultural and social dance traditions, with a specific focus on how they have evolved from and influenced each other. These traditions include authentic/vernacular jazz, charleston, tap, lindy hop, stepping, house, dancehall, breaking, popping, litefeet, hip hop and modern forms of Black social and vernacular dance that have yet to be codified.

He is currently studying house, and continually growing in many street styles. In dance, he values lineage, authenticity, community, partnership and fun. He strives to incorporate these elements in my classes as well.

His work consistently draws back to authentic jazz, as the foundation and axis on which all modern forms of Black social dance have been built. He wants to undermine the assumption that eurocentric forms of dance such as ballet and contemporary are the essential foundations of dance.

Erol hails from Turkey and is driven by jazz music, specifically by the bop era. Coming from a musical background at a young age, he has been in constant search and sharing of rare jazz recordings for the past few years. Known by his selection of groovy songs, he will be in ARH to make you dance to your heart’s content.

Natasha Martin uses dance to approach music as groove, rhythms and pulse. She performs and teaches body music and tap dance and has done many collaborations with groups of musicians, theater plays and many other forms of art performances.

LaTasha “Tasha” Barnes is an internationally recognized and awarded dancer, educator, coach, Tradition-bearer and cultural ambassador. Based in New York, Barnes is globally celebrated for her musicality, athleticism, and joyful presence throughout the cultural traditions she bears: House, Hip-Hop, Waacking, Vernacular Jazz, and Lindy Hop.

Her expansive artistic, competitive and performative skills have made her a frequent collaborator to Dorrance Dance, Singapore based Timbre Arts Group, Ephrat Asherie Dance as well as many international Jazz/Lindy Hop and Urban Arts festivals like the International Lindy Hop Championships (ILHC), Summer Dance Forever, and Ladies of Hip-Hop Festival.

Expanding the scope of impact for her communities, Barnes recently earned her self-designed Master’s in Ethnochoreology, Black Studies and Performance Studies thru New York University Gallatin School (2019). Her thesis and continuing research are working to bridge the gap between communities of practice and academic cultural dance research, performance, preservation and pedagogy.

In concert with these efforts she is honored to be a part of the creative team developing the ground-breaking stage production Swing Out, bringing the passion and power of Lindy Hop and it’s community to the concert stage. Accolades and goals aside, Barnes’ forever purpose is to inspire fellow artists and arts enthusiasts to cultivate an authentic sense of self in their creative expressions and daily lives.

Helena Kanini Kiiru is a young dancer and teacher based in Zagreb, Croatia. She started off as a hip hop dancer at the age of 10, and after 8 years of practicing various street styles, she fell in love with lindy hop.

Very quickly she found passion for solo jazz, especially the raw style of authentic jazz pioneers. Her talent was recognized at JazzRoots 2018 where she won both solo and showcase competitions. She stood out due to her unique style, charisma and authenticity. She was teaching at some of the biggest festivals such as Jazz Roots, The Snowball and Herrang dance camp. Now she continues to travel internationally and enjoys spreading her love for solo jazz with her students.

Sammy Gian is a Kenyan dance instructor and choreographer with a strong background and experience in teaching and in facilitating performances. His formal education started in one of the biggest institutes of performing arts training in South Africa the MID (Moving into Dance Mophatong), but his professional experience as an artistic director and choreographer, performer, and teacher runs over 10 years in various African and European countries. In 2012 he was one of the main choreographers and instructors in an academic program at the University of Maputo, in Mozambique. Since then, he has participated in various festivals around the world and he creates his own productions. His dance identity has different dynamics based on the contemporary dance techniques of Martha Graham and Lester Horton mixed with African and acrobatic elements. Nevertheless, his dance styles continue to a big variety of hip hop, house, modern, urban jazz, and afro-fusion. Since 2016, he has lived in Athens, Greece, where he teaches afro-fusion on a weekly basis at the Professional Dance School, Aktina, as well as in dance studios such as DANCCE and Dancevacuum. He also coordinates seminars with different themes in different dance schools. Since July 2017, he has formed the Twende Dance Project, a modern dance center and meeting point for professional and amateur dancers, and a roof for his dance company. in 2018 and 2019 participates in the Thessaloniki Swing Festival as an African Dance teacher and as a performer and co-organizes the African-American Jazz Dance Project, where he studies African roots in jazz dances. To this day he continues to teach children and adults.

Bantu Dancers is a dance group of young people born and raised in Greece but with origins from Africa. For over 6 years, in collaboration with the Anasa Cultural Center of African Art and Cultures, we have been researching on West African dances, learning about dance traditions from all over West Africa and incorporating all that with the everyday life and experiences we face living as part of the African community in Greece. The group combines modern African movements with traditional movements, dancing to contemporary but also traditional rhythms with live drumming. Bantu Dancers have participated in various festivals all over the world.

Alex and Ioanna are an enthusiastic blues dance couple! They love to share their personal style of Blues dancing through teaching, adore choreographing captivating performances and cherish loooong nights of social dancing!

They are both highly trained dancers; Ioanna has been dancing since she was a child and Alex has been doing Swing dances for more than 12 years!

Since 2017 they have been focusing mainly on Blues, traveling around Europe deepening their understanding of the Blues dance and its culture as well as continuously developing their dancing and teaching skills!

Thanos is a leading figure of tap dance and body music in Greece, while sharing and performing around the globe. Mentored by Heather Cornell and Max Pollak, his work focuses on the music delivered from the body sounds and percussive movement, fusing and expanding to various musical styles from jazz & funk, afro & latin, to his eastern and Balkan roots.

Today Thanos was until recently a cast member of the dance and music group Cambuyon from Spain, premiered with them this February 2015 at the New Victory Theater in New York (Broadway) and is part of the international show “Body Music: see music, hear dance” under the direction of Keith Terry and Jep Melendez.

He is actively involved in the Athens Jazz scene and his collaborations include top greek jazz artists, the Coolspiritrio and his own leading projects Tapmotif Sextet and Acoustic Movement. He teaches regularly in the artistic space “Playground for the arts”, which is a faculty member of the “Orff Institute in Athens”. He is also constantly teaching to communities abroad, sharing tradition, concepts and his approaches in countries like USA, Canada, Spain, France, Switzerland, UK, Finland and more.

Marie has been dancing almost as long as she has been walking, training mostly in modern Jazz. She fell in love with Lindy Hop and other African American Vernacular Jazz dances in 2006.

A true scientist (She obtained her PhD in Neuroimmunology from Karolinska Institute, Stockholm Sweden in 2018), Marie loves history and facts. She has been applying her scientific method and dance education to conduct an embodied practice-based research of Jazz dance through the study of  original video clips and collaborations with many established dancers. She has also researched the cultural and social context of the Jazz dance era through literature study and interviews of artists. Her main focus is on the African American Jazz Women and Chorines (chorus girls) of the time. 

Marie worked and danced with the fantastic teachers of the Cat’s Corner Studio in Montreal, Canada and Chicago Swing Dance Studio in Stockholm, Sweden. She also teaches internationally, in France, Spain, England, Australia, Russia, USA, China… as well as at the world famous Herräng Dance Camp

Currently, Marie is a board member of the newly founded Black Lindy Hoppers Fund (an organization dedicated to support African and African diasporic dancers and artists in Lindy Hop and Jazz). She is also leading a new non-profit organization, Collective Voices for Change.

Remy Kouakou Kouame is an established dancer and performer. He started dancing Boogie Woogie at the tender age of 6, and went on to claim both the French and World Championships titles. He also dances Lindy Hop competitively and has more than a few Lindy Hop titles under his winners belt. Add a good measure of Solo Jazz to the mix and that brings us up to the present day. By now he has been an established teacher on the international scene for many years, and his fame and acclaim as a dancer and teacher continue to grow. He is to be found teaching, performing, and competing at international events and festivals around the world, sharing his joy and knowledge. His approach to Swing is unique and original, and as a teacher he promotes creativity and individuality.

Felix Berghäll is a choreographer, performer and educator as well as a music researcher and DJ in Lindy Hop and African American Vernacular Jazz. He has studied Sport Coaching and Sport Science at the Swedish School of Sport and Health Science in Stockholm. He has been part of the national team as an athlete in Boogie Woogie and Lindy Hop and is now Co-Head Coach with his partner Mikaela Hellsten for the national team of Lindy Hop in Sweden.

He has also been working the last 5 years co-organising one of the biggest events in the world with focus on Lindy Hop and African American Vernacular Jazz, Herräng Dance Camp. He just resigned from his position at Herräng Dance Camp in November 2021.

Felix has been dancing since he was 8 years old, starting with training and competing in the Swedish dance style Bugg as well as Lindy Hop, Boogie Woogie and Double Bugg. All dances derived from Lindy Hop and African American Vernacular Jazz. He was in love from the beginning and was really, and still is taken by the music.

Currently, he is also part of leading a new NGO as board member and treasurer, Collective Voices for Change, along with other dancers and scholars in order to create a platform to address social issues in the Jazz dance community. The current focus of the initiative is to discuss the issues of cultural appropriation and racial injustice.

Frida has been dancing since her early childhood. Her very first dance interest was Swedish folk dances and Swedish Bugg and later moved on to Boogie Woogie. She also attended a three year dance dance high school focusing on modern and contemporary jazz dance and ballet. Training and competing brought her to Herräng Dance Camp where she was exposed to Lindy hop on the social dance floor for the first time and she fell head over heels in love with the music and the dance, finding a freedom of expression she had never felt before. From that point she was hooked and has never looked back. She joined the performance group The Rhythm Hot Shots, now known as The Hot Shots, a celebration of Harlem rhythms, for 15 years.
There she got the possibility to work hard, learning and performing a broad spectrum of the African American dances she loves such as Lindy Hop, solo  jazz, charleston and tap. She feels incredibly happy and humble that she has had the opportunity to travel the world performing, teaching, competing and sharing her passion for this artform for the last 20 years.

Skye Humphries was first persuaded to dance Lindy Hop by his mother in 1996, but quickly discovered his own love of social dancing, swing music and the Lindy Hop community. This led him to a wider interest in dance and he took classes in ballet, modern, and Jazz. Since 1999 he has taught wherever Lindy Hop is done – from national weekends to international dance camps. He is a founding member of some the most influential modern Lindy Hop troupes- including Minnie’s Moochers, Mad Dog, and the Silver Shadows.

Skye has also won titles at all of the major Lindy Hop competitions – including ULHS, ILHC, ALHC and the World Lindy Hop Championships. This involvement with Lindy Hop sparked his wider interest in America’s history and cultural heritage- leading him to pursue American Studies at The George Washington University where he received his master’s degree in 2007. He currently resides in New York City.