Studio

I am the owner and director of a prominent swing dance studio in Canada, Sugar Swing Ballroom, which was founded in 2005. In 2017 I co-founded the non-profit entity Sugar Swing Community of Jazz. These organizations are my primary focus, and find myself at Sugar Swing most nights of the week. My usual weekly activities include teaching several classes, coaching our two performance teams, deejaying. On the management side of things, I am coordinating staff, instructors, and bands. There are a few annual events I spearhead as well; Lindy Harvest, Summer Solstice, and our New Year’s Eve party. Last but not least, I am the producer of Swing Showcase, a 1hr show for the Edmonton Fringe Festival. All said, it is a very busy lifestyle, but it’s also quite exciting.

Sugar Swing gets people together for engaging classes, fun parties, and captivating shows with music, dancing, and sweet moves. We value good music, a supportive community, and helpful, skilled instructors to further our ambitions. Dancing is fun, and we are inclusive regardless of age, gender, identity, colour, and appearance.

Sugar Swing offers weekly dance socials with drop-in lessons on Fridays and Saturdays. We run 20-some classes a week, and involve a dozen instructors plus 7-8 regular deejays. Sugar Swing’s main dance form is Lindy Hop, but more broadly we are into “rhythmic dance arts”; this includes dance programs in Tap, Solo Jazz, House, West African, Caribbean, Balboa, among others.

A brief story…

I started Sugar Swing in 2005 with the simple desire of getting people together to swing dance in Edmonton. At the time, there was only a handful of us interested in Lindy Hop here. Although tiny, I connected to both the community-minded aspect of Lindy Hop, as well as the vibrant self expression and rhythmic language of this amazing dance. Perhaps growing up in a close-knit farming community while being exposed to folk dancing and taking piano lessons had something to do with it. So, I really wanted more people to dance with, and I wanted to share this dance with people. At the time, I didn’t desire or believe that this could ever be something popular here or personally self-sustaining. To me, that was for bigger and prettier cities like Montreal or Vancouver. Boy, was I ever wrong, and I’m very glad I was!