WHO'S WHO IN SW!NG OUT

LAURA GLAESS (Dancer) started dancing in 2001 in San Antonio, TX. It wasn’t a very large scene, and her teachers hadn’t been dancing very long, but she instantly fell in love with Lindy Hop, the music, the history, and everything involved. When not in a pandemic, Laura travels the world teaching, competing, performing, and learning. She is a passionate believer in dancing with swing, with rhythm, and in pushing for something new while maintaining a connection with the original vintage context of Lindy Hop. She feels that honoring the history of the dance and its inventors is a crucial part of practicing the dance. She is madly in love with jazz music and movement and strives to convey that love to her students. She is also a strong believer that the best thing to do to get good at dancing is to DANCE. Classes are amazing and helpful, but they are merely supplemental to getting out there on social the social dance floor and just doing it. Laura believes that the local scene is the backbone of the global community, so she is an active participant in her home music and dance communities. Laura is also an artist, and works on blending her love of music and movement with a fine art medium. You can buy her prints at www.etsy. com/shop/lauraglaessart, T-shirt designs at lauraglaess.threadless.com/, and you can see her latest routines and dance tutorials at www.youtube.com/c/lauraglaess.

AJ HOWARD (Dancer) brings a unique style and energy to the Lindy Hop community. Getting introduced to the world of Lindy Hop at the age of 19, AJ quickly took an appreciation to dance which lead to him running home, getting changed, and heading out to dance almost every day of the week after working his job at a car dealership. He burst into the scene in 2016, winning competitions throughout the US with his partner Jennifer, showing the dance world what Sacramento really had to offer! Competing at international events such as Camp Hollywood and the International Lindy Hop Championships, AJ became well known for his generous use of aerials paired with his energetic dancing. AJ has also had the honor of performing with dance groups such as HellaBlackLindyHop, San Francisco Jitterbugs, and the Midtown Stompers, and the privilege to spread his love of dance through teaching at Lindy Hop events in the US, on a Carnival Cruise ship, and around Europe.

MICHAEL JAGGER (Dancer) has been an international Lindy Hop instructor for 16 years. His stage credits include South Pacific (associate choreographer, Chichester Festival Theater, UK), two consecutive appearances at Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out Festival with his dance company, Syncopated City, which he co-directed with his dance partner, Evita Arce. They were featured dancers for Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra in Let Freedom Swing, a celebration of jazz for Martin Luther King Jr. Day at the Kennedy Center and again with the J @ LCO for a tribute to Benny Goodman at the Rose Theater in NYC. As a principal dancer, he starred as Lindy Hop specialist in several productions of the Broadway musical Swing!, including regional productions at Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, the California Music Circus in Sacramento, and the 2008 Japanese tour. He would like to acknowledge his mentors, the Elders, and Karolina for all that they have afforded him to be on this stage!

JENNIFER NICOLE JONES (Dancer) is a New York City based Dancer. Originally from Akron, OH. She received a BFA in Dance Performance from Wright State University while performing with Dayton Contemporary Dance Company. Jennifer has performed in many regional and Off Broadway productions.

DEE DANIELS LOCKE (Dancer) started Swing Dancing at the age of four with her dad in the basement at her grandma’s dance parties, wearing her mom’s heels and her favorite plaid skirt. After a hiatus into hip-hop performance during her school years, she was called back to Lindy Hop, and co-founded her college swing dance club. She has become an influential member of the Minneapolis scene, teaching and mentoring. For two decades she has shared her love of Lindy Hop and Jazz with dancers young and old. Dee loves feeling free on the dance floor and advocates for self-expression and individual creativity as the true spirit of Lindy Hop and Vernacular Jazz. Weaving music and movement allow her the expression. She dances for joy both in partnered or solo dancing and searches for presence in each moment. She loves responding to the music and partner, priding herself on making each dance unique to the musical experience and partner, creating an authentic dance conversation. She has taught, performed, and choreographed nationally and internationally, but mostly she wants to have a good dance, and she wants you to have a good dance.

BRIAN LAWTON (Understudy - Dancer) is a dancer, instructor, choreographer, and director. He has an eclectic background in ballet, jazz, and modern as well as Latin and Ballroom dances with a specialty in the vernacular jazz dances of the 1920's-1940's. He has performed on Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Shakespeare in the Park’s Comedy of Errors, and with the Red Hot Chili Peppers at Madison Square Garden and in their music video Go Robot. He was the Choreographer and Resident Director of the A Charlie Brown Christmas National Tour and is a Resident Choreographer for Norwegian Cruise Line as well as the Assistant Director/ Choreographer of the new musical Part of the Plan (TPAC) and the Associate Director of Distant Thunder (Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma).

Born and raised in Nagoya, Japan, MARTHA KATO (Piano) is a pianist, composer, and arranger in her blossoming career in New York. Based in New York since 2009, she has performed across the world as a bandleader and collaborator at major venues such as Blue Note, Jazz Standard, Blue Note Tokyo, Cotton Club Japan, The Jazz Gallery, Dizzy’s Club, Smoke Jazz & Supper Club, and Smalls Jazz Club. Playing in a wide range of styles and instrumentations, she has shared the stage and studio-recording with collaborators including Remy Le Boeuf, Miho Hazama, Takuya Kuroda, Alexis Cuadrado, and Pedro Giraudo. Martha’s awards and honors include the ASCAP Foundation Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award and she is a second-place winner of Montreux Jazz Solo Piano Competition in Kawasaki 2014. She was a scholarship recipient of The Juilliard School and The New School, where