Laurel Ryan

If you ask Laurel how she got into swing dance, she’ll tell you a winding tale about growing up surrounded by jazz and learning the Charleston from her grandmother and Groucho Marx. Ultimately, her involvement in authentic jazz movement might’ve been inevitable. She’s currently passionate about recentering the modern swing dance aesthetic on Black perspectives and movement. With two decades in education, Laurel aims to give dancers tools to learn through observation, experimentation and play, and improvisation. (She’ll tell you a winding tale about that, too, if you let her. Better to come to a class and see for yourself.)