Laura Knight & Sarah Spoon

Laura  & Sarah are coming all the way from the UK to share their passion for dancing and teach a taster class during Copenhagen Lindy Exchange 2019!

Laura stumbled into a swing class back in 2009 and has never looked back. Since then she has taught dance locally in London and at events in Europe and around the UK. Laura founded Girl Jam – an annual solo dance event and the Dixie Dinahs – an award-winning all-girl performance troupe. For a few years, she also ran the London Swing Festival. Laura’s never been very good at ‘spare time.’ These days you’ll see her DJ’ing at global events, guest teaching around the UK and Europe, but mostly, you’ll find her on the dance floor, trading phrases on the side or swinging out with a partner. Laura believes that social dancing is where the magic happens. She makes no apologies for that.

Sarah Spoon hails from London originally but now spends her time traveling in pursuit of that particular type of joy that comes from Lindy Hop. Having grown up dabbling in ballroom dancing, salsa, and northern soul, when she accidentally discovered swing dancing it really was an addiction at first triple step. Sarah is big on connection, communication, and equality in partner dancing. She believes in the power of laughter, and her classes reflect this. She internationally teaches, performs and competes as a follow and a lead…And yes, she does have a spoon collection.

Taster: “Personally Awesome Musicality”.

Level up your partner dancing by developing your musicality! Explore with us the ways to express your voice through rhythm and connection, and discover how to add it into the partnership without interrupting your flow! 

Liane Limon & Thomas Noguer

Liane & Thomas are coming all the way from Paris, France!

Liane met the world of swing in Montpellier back in 2013, where she learned Lindy Hop. She joined the Swingjammerz school and quickly caught the bug. Lucky to have participated in the courses of great international dancers such as Tatiana Udry, Alice Mei, Dax Hock, JB Mino, and others, who inspired her dance style. Thanks to her classical training as a musician, singer, and dancer, she gives a lot of importance to interpretation, musicality, technique, and exchange between partners.

Thomas has been dancing Lindy Hop since 2014 in Paris. Quickly hooked, he dances without rest, travels a lot to international workshops and started to compete. He notably made it to the final of the Open J&J at Savoy Cup 2018 and placed first in the Open J&J at the All Lithuanian Weekend 2018.

You will easily find him on any social dance floor with a good live band, usually quite close to the scene! He’s full of energy, loves to learn and share his passion. Rhythm, playfulness, and communication are the heart of Lindy Hop for him.

When Liane moved to Paris to make a living out of music, she met Thomas on the dance floor. They directly clicked and only a few months later they started teaching together. Always exploring, they love to nerd about dance and teaching techniques to improve both as dancers and teachers. Their common taste for musicality, dialogue, and bad jokes makes their duet explosive and singular!

Just recently they have placed 1st and 2nd in Mix’n’Match competition at Lindylicious Swing Dance Festival! Congrats! Check it out here!

They will teach 2 Lindy Hop tasters:

Free up your footwork

In this class we are going to focus on exercise to learn to play freely with your steps regardless of the moves you do

Taking time to glide

In this class we’ll work on one of Frankie Manning’s favorite techniques. Gliding is essentially dancing in close position with lots of subtleties. The focus will be on learning to appreciate taking the time off simple movements together in the moment. 

Martin Lasthein & Minou Ericson

Martin and Minou have been dancing together since meeting at Herräng Dance Camp in 2012. They’ve danced their way through events and workshops globally with their trademark playful style and visible, genuine love of lindy hop.

Minou Ericson lives in Stockholm and simply loves to dance. While taking street dance classes she was introduced to Lindy Hop and it was love at first sight. She loves social dancing, competing, choreographing and performing in both lindy hop and authentic jazz, using isolations and other street dance elements as part of her unique style.

Ever since discovering Lindy Hop at the Copenhagen Jazz Festival, Martin’s been pushing his dance by competing, teaching, performing and his favorite: social dancing. His musical intuition comes from an odd mix of his dad’s love of big band jazz, playing the drums as a teenager and briefly DJ’ing house in London.

Taster topic: “Say What?”

How to turn you social dancing into playful conversations.

Lotte Suijker & Piotr Borowian

Lotte’s and Piotr’s first dance, in a beautiful danish forest by a campfire, ignited a spark of exploration, playfulness, and experimentation; the light of which is still guiding them in their social dancing, training, and teaching to this day.

With a combined background in swing dances, blues, classical ballet, contemporary, contact improv, salsa and afro dances, they see partner dancing as a wonderful playground where — through a shared passion for music and movement — people can express themselves and meet each other in a free and authentic way.

In their teaching, they are trying to find that sweet spot where learning good technical foundation and new vocabulary — which can make you understand and relate to the movement of another person in almost magical ways — meets the spirit of play, improvisation, and fun!

They will teach 2 blues tasters:

Let loose with the blues 
That moment when the further slowing down of your swing out can only lead to the land of the unbearably awkward and the impossibly uncomfortable. 

Ever been there? If so, we’ll show you the way out – to the land where the space in between beats can instead be filled with playfulness, experimentation, fun and the relaxed enjoyment of that sweet blues.

Gourmet close embrace: the recipe
Close embrace, when cooked well, can be nothing short of a delicious feast where the main course is pure bliss.

In this taster, we’ll share a simple recipe for a gourmet close embrace, as well as some practical tips on how to avoid over/under cooking and other half-baked attempts. And even more importantly, we’ll practice how to invite to a close embrace and how to accept/reject such an invitation.

Maja SOMMERFELDT & Teis VOLSTRUP

Maja and Teis`s style of collegiate shag is a unique mix of colourful variations, improvisation and musicality. Their core driver is fun and happiness, which they love to express in their teaching, competitions and shows. Together they teach weekly classes of Collegiate Shag for everyone from beginners to shagsters with years of experience and have been a main force in creating what is now a blooming scene in Copenhagen. Besides shag, they teach lindy hop. It’s obvious that the passion for swing dancing is becoming more and more of a lifestyle. 4 times endurance competitions winners – twice in Barcelona Shag Festival and twice in LA Shag Festival, Maja and Teis are well known faces in the international scene and travel the world spreading their love for Collegiate Shag.

Katharina Duarte

Katharina has been dancing and playing music since childhood. Starting with the violin at the age of 5 she has played, sung and danced her way through music schools and dance studios. At home, she grew up on Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman. Her love for dancing and teaching lindy hop and solo jazz shines through in her classes that are known for great energy, connection with the roots, passion for music and focus on working with students on all levels.

Katharina will teach 2 solo jazz tasters:

Solo Jazz Routine
In this class you will learn a fun solo jazz routine with elements from classic choreographies. We will focus on the rhythms of our dance and the individual expression.

How to improvise with Solo Jazz
Through games and exercise we will explore the world of improvisation and figure out how to improvise with the steps you already know. It will be fun and playful, and we will always be dancing in groups