Cambridge Lindy Hoppers

Current teachers

For information on private lessons, please see the Classes page.

Maria Andersson

Although Maria probably started dancing before she could walk, it was not until the age of 13 she started taking dance classes. She started off with street dancing and was part of a performance group for 2 years. She is very keen on learning new dances and has experience in salsa, bachata, merengue, ballet, argentine tango and a bit of modern and tap.

Maria has had the opportunity to take part of shows of various kinds, mainly as a street dancer. She has choreographed for several of these, including the CUCDW shows Elemental 2007 and Perspectives 2008. As well as dancing Maria has other experience of performing. She has competed in gymnastics with choreographed pieces to music, been a member and choreographer for a cheerleading group, and has been a part of a performance troupe in aerobics.

The swing dances lindy, blues and balboa are her favourites though, and she is one of the original members of the Cambridge Lindy Hoppers and their performance troupe. She started with lindy in France 2004, and got hooked after 2 weekends there and a week in Herräng. Since, she has made a habit of attending Herräng dance camp ever year. She is also notoriously known to prefer to spend more time in the air than on the ground…

Dancing is Maria’s life and she is very keen to spread the lindy love!

Toni Laurila

Toni Laurila began swing dancing at Swing Team in Tampere, Finland, in 2000. He started with boogie woogie and switched later on to lindy hop. In addition to boogie woogie and lindy hop, his current dance repertoire includes balboa, shag and Finnish swing dance, fusku. Toni is a keen social dancer who is not afraid to dance some social ballroom, like waltz, tango, cha cha cha, as well. Before moving to Cambridge in 2007 he was organising dance events and teaching beginners and intermediate classes in Tampere. In 2006 he played a key role in organising the Swing Spring lindy hop camp.

Gemma Barson

Gérald Bianchi

Dave Kim

Mirjana Skrba

Past teachers

Matt Riddle and Lotte Geldof

Matt Riddle began teaching Lindy Hop at Swing Central in Melbourne in 1999, and taught beginners, intermediate and advanced classes there for 6 years before relocating to Cambridge in early 2006. Since April 1999 Matt has studied swing dancing around the world, taking classes from the best teachers he could find. Matt was the original organiser of Australia’s best known international Lindy Hop event, the Melbourne Lindy Exchange, which started in 2001.

He also organised the Australian Hellzapoppin’ Prize, widely regarded as Australia’s finest Lindy Hop contest, and was Head Judge for the Australian Jitterbug Championships in 2005. He was a founding member of the Lindy troupe Crazy Rhythm Revue, appearing in numerous performances. Matt has has been invited to DJ at events around the world, including SwingCity 2003 in Harlem, the Herrang Dance Camp in Sweden in 2004, 2005 and 2006, and won DJ battles in Paris in 2004 and Perth in 2005. Read Matt’s full Dance biography.

Lotte Geldof started dancing at the age of 8, and has since studied many different styles including jazz, contemporary, acrobatic rock ‘n roll, contact improvisation, yoga and African dancing. She started swing dance in 2001 in Melbourne Australia and has since visited many international dance camps.

In Melbourne, Lotte helped form the swing dance performance group Crazy Rhythm Revue. In 2003 and 2004 she played a major role in the organisation of the Melbourne Lindy Exchange. She taught swing dance in Melbourne before moving to Cambridge, UK, in January 2006. She assisted Bill Borgida at the Herrang Dance Camp in 2004 and recently taught workshops with him in Hamburg, Dublin and Norwich.

Lotte is a qualified Physiotherapist and a professional dance/drama teacher for secondary schools. These studies combined with her personal experiences with movement developed her deep understanding of the body and the skill to communicate her knowledge clearly.