Joo-Lee & Andy

Joo-Lee had her first Charleston & Authentic Jazz  workshops with Warren Hayes from the Jiving Lindy Hoppers in 1993 in a week-long dance camp in Ferryhill, Co Durham. She assumed she could keep learning swing dancing in the northeast and found it wasn't the case and so signed up for dancing, any dancing! She began going to Tap, Jazz, Contemporary, Salsa, Tango and Modern Jive classes every week for about six years before going to Herrang in 1999 and becoming totally hooked on Lindy Hop. She kept going to Herrang every year until 2003 and had amazing experiences and a burning desire to share them with everybody. She met Andy in 2001 and together they had a vision for a warm and friendly scene based in the Northeast where people of different age groups and backgrounds would meet to dance and have lots of fun making friends.

Joo-Lee was a director of performing arts,  teaching in secondary schools and training primary school teachers as well as postgraduate teacher-trainees. She gave this up (mad!) and launched Lindy Jazz in January 2007 with monthly socials and weekly classes in Durham. Together with Andy, their vision was to create a lively scene where a dedicated team of teachers and helpers would play an important part in encouraging people who have not necessarily danced before to experience the joy of learning the Lindy Hop and Blues. They invited everyone they knew from their personal and professional networks and worked hard to get as much media coverage as possible.  Within a few months, they opened a new venue in Newcastle, helped to start the Durham University Swing Society and held their first weekend event, DJam in 2008.

Andy has been dancing since 1990, having started with an initial trial by fire in the ballroom dance world, followed by an growing passion for Modern Jive. In 1998, his increasing interest in blues dance and Lindy Hop further fueled his enthusiasm for social dance, leading him to study Lindy with top teachers such as Frankie Manning, Steven Mitchell, Peter Loggins and Russell Sargeant. Other dance influences including Salsa, Ballroom and Argentine Tango, coupled with an instinctive understanding of music and musical interpretation, have given him his trademark smooth, connected and highly musical style.

These multiple influences, in combination with his naturally warm and friendly attitude have helped him develop a highly accessible, encouraging and thorough connection-based teaching aproach.

His enthusiasm for music, his extensive and constantly growing jazz, swing, and blues collection music, and his innate musicality and dance knowledge give him an edge as the resident Lindy Jazz DJ, and in consequence his skills as a Swing and Blues DJ are sought after both nationally and internationally.  His ability to choose the perfect music for the occasion serve to make every Lindy Jazz event an exciting, unforgettable experience.
Read Andy's Blog

•    Member of Foundation for Community Dance
•    Member of the National Dance Teachers Association
•    Association of Teachers and Lecturers
•    General Teaching Council
•    Coaching Circle
•    National Council of Psychotherapists