Michael Wall
The 1950s event was awesome; you guys definitely made the night! It worked so well with the extra couples - a great show!! Stephen is a superb instructor. Hopefully, we will be able to use you in the future?!
I hope the dance team enjoyed the night and were made to feel welcome.
Thanks for all your help and ideas - you guys are fantastic!!!
“Initially, I found I was wondering how dancing would work with networking, but we like to do things which are a bit different and we are always looking for different ideas, so we decided to ask Joo-Lee and things took off from there. To my surprise there wasn’t a single person who didn’t get involved, everybody gave it a chance and everybody enjoyed it and had a lot of fun.
The evening was good fun and got people talking. If you break down the barriers by giving people something mutual to talk about they quickly find they are having a good laugh, then they go on afterwards talking to each other and carry on laughing about what they’ve been doing, and I think that shared experience is the key to it
We have had two or three people that have said that that was the best night we have ever had. It was a lot of fun and it was very positive.”
I invited Joo-Lee from Lindy Jazz to be a Guest Speaker at Newcastle College Performance Academy in March 2010 to speak to first year Foundation Degree students on the Event Management course. I lecture on two modules, Principals in Event Management and Funding and Income Streams.
Having previously worked with Joo-Lee I knew she would be an ideal speaker given her experience in Event Management and delivery and teaching experience. Lindy Jazz as a SME is an ideal model to illustrate to the students how to set up your own business and make it a success as Joo-Lee has done with her company.
The students had a really good experience, learning some dance which proved to be a really good ice breaker and a great way to engage the students. One student who is new to the Group, and particularly shy, thanked Joo-Lee as the session had helped to introduce her to the Group and as a result of this she was invited to lunch with some of the Group and she is also very keen to do a work placement with Joo-Lee. It was very beneficial for the students to meet a working professional from the event industry and get an insight into real life business.I would highly recommend Lindy Jazz for to participate in any company events.
Woodhorn booked Lindy-Jazz to perform on August Bank Holiday Monday as our major exhibition at the time was about Northumberland during WWII. The period music and dancing displays brought the exhibition theme and the museum site to life in a fun, friendly and accessible way. Lindy-Jazz were very professional to work with, and I would recommend them wholeheartedly. We were particularly impressed with how the group engaged with our visitors, spending time chatting with them about the music and dancing alongside their impressive performances.
I would like to thank you and Andy for your wonderful presentation of the Lindy Hop Blues dance at our Equality Awards on Friday. The dance, which was beautifully executed, lent atmosphere to the occasion and was extremely well received. I would certainly be more than pleased to recommend you for any such event, thank you again.
Just a note to say thanks to you and your dancers for Friday night - all the feedback tells me it was rockin' in there!
Many many thanks to you and Andy for running such a superb day and night of events! I know that those participating really enjoyed themselves and I have had a lot of good comments about the Friday night. I appreciated all your efficient management of everything and hope that we can work together again.
We had a GREAT afternoon and the feedback has been great, all the teachers we've spoken to are really keen for you to come back and do it again. The Charleston shoot afterwards was fantastic as well, due purely to the workshop; there are a couple of shots that look great, with everyone really 'in'.
I particularly liked about the teachers session:
It reaffirmed a lot of the practices that we already have in place but addressed them in a new way. Jane and myself both felt that it helped us to positively reassess our own dancing as well as our own teaching, and it was really interesting to see how others in the group coped with new models of learning and instruction. Tackling swingouts from the centre outwards was a refreshing take. I particularly liked the general nature that you both have, you are extremely approachable, amenable and modest as teachers which I think goes a long way to help improve people's self confidence, and thereby improve their learning experience; we've seen people responding badly to teachers in the past who can come across as a bit up themselves! None of that with you ;)
First rate workshops. Thank you so much!
You gave us so much useful stuff from our skill swap sessions that we thought it’d be good to have you come & share it with our teachers. There were at least 3 levels of learning for me - learning about teaching, watching you teach & watching how our newer dancers were learning.
Instead of teaching numbers, it was interesting to see how our dancers were picking up the technique & improving quickly once they got used to this new method that freed them from counting & from footwork patterns. Using your method, even the newer dancers were leading & following & could dance through a whole song.
“It gave me time to develop an alternative understanding of lindy away from step patterns and moves”
Having a private lesson meant I had a consistent partner and therefore the opportunity to try different approaches to the same move. We were able to discuss what worked better, worse, or just differently.
Appreciating common "ideas" like triple step, pulse, stretch, kick down, and beginning to feel comfortable with them helped by allowing me to focus on other ideas, whilst maintaining communication with my partner.
I now have a better understanding that communication between dance partners improves with a good connection. Non-visual communication adds to the dance and is something that watching a demonstration can’t teach; I don’t get it until I feel it.
It’s fun to dance with the teacher; they love dancing too.
If you know what you want but are looking for a way to get there; Or if you do not know what you want but know you want to learn, I would recommend a private lesson with Joo-Lee.
As always, Lindy Jazz are always a pleasure to work with. It's always impressive to see how organised the operation is - a well oiled machine. It was especially good seeing how the tempo of the evening was kept at a great pace, the atmosphere was held throughout and the hosting skills were impeccable - genuinely impressive stuff.
