Andreas Olsson & Olga Marina
Andreas Olsson lives in Stockholm, Sweden. He grew up on the wrestling mat, fighting other little boys in leotards. He won most of the time since he’s always given 100% in everything that he does. He also played the violin in his childhood. You might not think classical music and wrestling has much in common with Swing dancing, but it has definitely contributed to him becoming the unpredictable, creative, musical and interesting dancer he is today.
Andreas was introduced to Lindy Hop in 2001 and a few years later to Balboa and other dances. In his early career, Andreas focused on performance and competition. He was part of the Swedish National Lindy Hop team and the Stockholm based performance troop Shout n Feel it. His international teaching career started in the mid 2000´s. Since then, Andreas teaches Lindy Hop, Solo Jazz, Balboa, Saint Louis Shag, Collegiate Shag and other swing dances all around the world. He often competes and was awarded first place at events as Balboa division at National Jitterbug Championships (Camp Hollywood), Lindy and Balboa division at International Lindy Hop Championships, American Classic Balboa Championships (All Balboa Weekend), Rendezvous Championships (New York Balweek) and Rocky Mountain Balboa Blowout. Andreas is also the reigning champion of the American Classic Balboa Championships at All Balboa Weekend together with Olga Marina.
Olga was born into a family of teachers and since early years has been an energetic live wire – studying music, doing athletics, martial arts and gymnastics. In 2007 she was introduced to Lindy Hop and this is where the real passion story begins. She got dance hooked and started to explore more of the dance world by getting into Blues and later Balboa. She has been actively travelling the globe in pursuit of more opportunities to dance, learn and compete. Later she began to share her love for swing music and dance by teaching. Now Olga is the international balboa instructor, teaching solo and couple Balboa all over the world.
At her classes she pays a lot of attention to getting the students interested and involved by giving challenging and fun tasks, working both on technique and musicality and infecting them even more with the love of dancing. For the time being she is passionately developing a new direction of swing dance practices – iSoloBalboa – offline and online solo classes for balboa leaders and followers which aim at polishing up technique and developing creativity and musicality.
Blake Thiessen & Grace Babbes
As a naive Southern California college student, Blake discovered swing dancing with a whimsical New Year’s resolution to try learning the dancing he saw in Swing Kids (1993). Little did he know, SoCal was one of the world’s largest scenes, with a rich history and dozens of the world’s best dancers and instructors. Immediately hooked, he developed a relentless obsession for Lindy, Balboa, and Collegiate Shag. He’s since gone on to win in a variety of international competitions and has taught around the world in places like Europe, Korea, Japan, Australia, and the US.
In his free time, Blake loves to study vintage dance clips. He has a deep reverence for the original dancers and loves to teach classes that focus on particular styles and techniques they used. As an instructor he also focuses on imparting his values of partner connection, tasteful musicality, and developing beautiful basics. While he loves practice, competition, and performance, his favorite thing about dancing is just having a simple, deeply-connected social dance with a like-minded partner.
Having grown up in a family of artists, Grace has been performing since she was 4. With her lifelong love of jazz music and vintage fashion, when she discovered her first lindy hop class in 2012, she was hooked. She can be seen dancing Lindy Hop, Balboa, and Collegiate Shag on the social dance floors across Southern California up to five nights a week. In addition, she regularly teaches and competes all around Southern California and across the US, placing/winning such competitions as ILHC, Camp Hollywood, and Hot Rhythm Holiday. Grace is also a member of the performance company The Hollywood Hotshots, specializing in preserving historical American vernacular jazz dances in live events, music videos, film, and television. She is also a sought after DJ, playing classic songs that inspire dancers of all levels to have fun connecting to the music, its history, and each other.
Grace brings her love of the dance to her teaching style, encouraging joy in her students, while keeping an emphasis on connection technique. For her, Lindy hop is a conversation between two people, and she brings her love of that conversation to every lesson, reinforcing strong connection and beautiful basics.