Michael and Jaya Teaching at Milwaukee Lindy Summit
(scroll down for short version)
Michael & Jaya have been involved with Lindy Hop in the southeast region of the US since the early 2000’s, teaching, organizing, and devoting themselves to the growth of the dance community. In addition to organizing Lindy Focus (1-10), Sugar Foot Stomp (1-2), Enter the Blues (2-3), and Southern Belle Swing Bash (1-6), they have taught workshops in over 30 US cities.
They have attended and led regional teacher training seminars, and have sought relentlessly to spread awareness of American Jazz Dance styles including Lindy Hop, Balboa, Charleston and more. Together and separately they have helped to organize, tabulate, mc, and judge a wide variety of competitions.
In the classroom, Michael and Jaya focus on their three pillars of learning: Technique, Classic Repertoire, and Improvisation. Their technique is about learning to move efficiently, powerfully, and such that you can best communicate with a partner, while visually expressing the swing idiom. Their Classic Repertoire is a collection of universally spoken dance vocabulary that reinforces good technique while keeping the partnership focused on the rhythms and moods of the music. Their exercises in improvisation focus the student on learning to understand the smallest possible units of the dance and how those can be combined in an almost infinite variety of ways.
The ultimate goal: Once you’ve mastered these skills, you will never have the same dance twice, and each dance will be better than your last.
Short version for promoters
Michael and Jaya are best known to the world as principal organizers of Lindy Focus, and currently live and work out of Asheville, NC. In addition to Lindy Focus, they have been organizing, teaching, competing, judging, dj-ing, performing, and generally being swing dance people for well over ten years.
In the classroom, they focus on (1) developing the technique on which all other skills are built (2) sharing the classic repertoire that has defined the dance for generations, and (3) leading variety- and individuality- inducing improvisation and variation exercises designed to guide you towards a more personalized style.