Benjamin Ricard and Geneviève Kérouac are highly skilled acrobatic swing dancers, and have won several prestigious awards in the swing dancing circuit.
Benjamin Ricard is the founder of Québec city’s Studio Port-O-Swing. Surrounded by a team of experienced teachers, Benjamin has developed a unique and reputed swing dance training program. In 2003, he started his own 5-couple acrobatic swing dance team, “Vintage Port-O-Swing”, which is frequently noticed on the international level. Not only is “Vintage” the Canadian champion, the team has also been the first Canadian team to win the American Lindy Hop Championships in October 2004.
Geneviève has taken to all kinds dancing, from classical ballet to contemporary dance, and she fell in love with acrobatic swing in 2000. In association with Benjamin Ricard and the studio Port-O-Swing, she took part in several international competitions as early as 2004, before becoming Canadian couple’s champion and World’s “Showcase” champion in 2005.
Myles Munroe and Tessa Cunningham are Canada's West Coast Swing Champions, ranked in the top 5 in the world. Myles 21 years of diverse dance training includes 6 UCWDC World Championship titles. Tessa brings academic expertise to the partnership, with university degrees in both Human Kinetics and Education.
As performers, they are known for their cutting-edge artistic choreography, positive youthful energy, and enviable musical expression. Their extensive teacher training and experience and loveable delivery of correct foundational technique inspires and empowers students of all levels. They are ambassadors for modern, authentic West Coast Swing: teaching, judging, performing and competing all over the world.
They are known for their humble character and approachability, they stay on the social dance floor till the wee hours of the morning, dancing with beginners and peers alike.
Peter Flahiff is an internationally known swing and tap dance instructor and performer. He started dancing in 1993 and has been working professionally since 1995. Peter has taught at many of the most prestigious dance events in the world, including Camp Hollywood in Los Angeles, Boogie Baërens Dance Seminar in Munich, and was invited to teach the “Competition and Show” track at the Herrang Dance Camp in 2000.
This is Peter’s third appearance at Swing Summit! He emphasizes the social dance aspect of swing dancing and puts his focus on solid techniques with clear lead and follow skills. He is also a sought-after swing DJ and has had the pleasure of spinning for dancers worldwide. But above all, Peter is a social dancer and loves sharing with others the ways in which they can get better and have more fun with social dancing, themselves!
Laura Shigemitsu
Laura Shigemitsu started swing dancing in 1995, and specializes in Collegiate Shag. She has taught and choreographed since 1998 both locally and internationally. She was co-headline instructor with shag legend, "Sailor" Mike Mizgalski at the 2007 Shag Jam and the 2007 World Swing Dance Championships. She currently teaches Swing and Ballroom in Southern California, and loves seeing the “a-ha” moment when the dance clicks for her students, and enjoys experimenting with different methods to help students understand the dance and lead and follow techniques. She also focuses on the physiology of the dance, looking for ways to prevent injury and fatigue with her university students.
Laura has competed and performed all over the world as a dancer and choreographer in Hong Kong’s Young Artist Series 1998, on Good Morning America, and at the Hollywood Bowl. Competitively, she placed in the American Lindy Hop Championships in 1999, came in third at the 2007 World Swing Dance Championship’s Invitational Jack and Jill with Benji Schwimmer, and was a member of the nationally ranked competitive swing dance team One2Swing Jitterbugs.
Ben & Katie
Ben White is an instructor at Eastside Stomp in Seattle, WA. He's been teaching swing dance for 5 years and is thrilled to be back for his third time teaching with Suburban Swing. Ben has performed with several groups, including partnering with Katie on both the Eastside Swing Cats and Swing-amajig.
Katie McMullen has thrived on social dancing since it took over her life. Taking classes and dancing all along the west coast, she competed for the first time at the Savoy Swing Jam in March in which she got 2nd place in the New Competitors Jack and Jill division. She has performed with the groups Swing-amajig and the Eastside Swing Cats.
Dean & Amanda
Dean started dancing while in college in 2000. His sister started a swing club in his hometown of Abbotsford, BC and insisted he try it out. It didn’t take long before he was going every sunday. After a few years, he started to teach east coast, lindy hop, musicality and spins/tricks workshops. Dean also started traveling to different cities to dance including LA, Denver, Portland, Seattle and Chicago. He specializes in smooth lindy, west coast swing and blues. Dean has been fortunate to get private instruction from Hasse & Marie (from Sweden) and to apprentice under Myles and Tessa (Canadian West Coast Champions) for a year and a half. In this time he developing his teaching as well as his dancing. Over the last couple years Dean has started teaching in Seattle as well as continuing to teach in Abbotsford as well as offering private lessons.
Dean on social dancing:
“I have always been a fan of the social dance floor. Of the competing I’ve done, I still don’t think it compares to being in the moment of spontaneity on the floor. The best moments in my dancing career are when it is just my partner and I. The music and everything else just disappears. It’s the energy that you find in that place that I want everyone to experience."
Amanda started dancing Lindy hop and Blues in 2004, becoming so wildly in love with both dances she took as many workshops and went to as many exchanges as she possibly could growing proficient in the dances quickly. All while juggling being a full time music student, working full time, coaching a high school colorguard, and taking solo classes in Jazz and Hip hop. In 2007 Amanda moved to Vancouver BC to attend the Vancouver Film School for Makeup Design. There she started teaching Blues regularly with her partner Dean Reimer and started learning West coast swing from the Canadian West Coast Champions Myles Munroe and Tessa Cunningham. Amanda has an eclectic style of Blues dancing fusing it with Hip hop, Funk and West Coast Swing as well she is a master of Micro Blues and beautiful subtle movements. She has been teaching group and private Blues lessons in Seattle for the past year.
Kerry Ward
Having caught the beginnings of the swing revival while living in Los Angeles, Kerry became involved with dancing early. Relocating with his wife and daughter to North Vancouver in the summer of 2004, Kerry loves living in Canada.
Adventure is a way of life for Kerry, so naturally, he is a specialist whose forte is dance aerials. If ya gotta fly, fly Air Ward. He has formerly danced with the Flyin' Lindy Hoppers, Roscoe's Rascals, Allision's Allicats and the Jitterbug Junkies and appeared in numerous film, TV and staged productions. He has danced with such celebrities as, Priscilla Presley, Bette Midler, Heather Locklear, Cybil Shephard, Jewel and a Playboy Playmate (or two) under the watchful eye of Hef.
