Our Team
Tena Morales-Armstrong
Tena Morales-Armstrong is a dedicated promoter and producer of several national dance events. She is currently co-producer of the International Lindy Hop Championships, Lindyfest, the Houston Jazz Dance Festival and International Swing Dance Championships. In the past she has also produced Atlanta's Swing and Soul Weekend and the Frankie Manning 95th Birthday celebration. She served as the Artistic director and choreographer of the Lindy Hop troupe The Houston Hepcats for many years.
A nationally renowned swing dance teacher and judge, Tena has hosted the international "Hellzapoppin" dance contest at the World Famous Apollo Theatre in Harlem in conjunction with the Harlem Jazz Dance Festival and has served as a main judge for Camp Jitterbug, US Open, American Lindy Hop Championships, National Hand Dance Association and the Ultimate Lindy Hop Showdown.
Her dedication to preserving the roots of Lindy Hop has lead her to create the very popular Swing Dance Museum which showcases artifacts from the swing era. Tena has also started and supported many Youth Programs thu out the US.
Julia Loving
Julia Loving for the past 27 years has been a Teacher of Africana History and School Media Specialist in the New York City public schools. Her Lindy hop training began under the tutelage of Samuel Coleman in Harlem back in 2013. Her interest in Lindy Hop grew out her watching the elders dance while attending outdoor community dance events in Harlem and attending MidSummer Night Swing as a teenager. She is co-founder of SwingWithUsNYC which organizes dance events in NYC, specifically in Harlem. She was honored to host the Frankie Manning 105/Norma Miller Dance Tribute in May of 2019. She has taught introductory level lindy hop to adults at the Marcus Garvey Center in Harlem as well as to her middle/high school students attending her after school program From Lindy Hop to Hip Hop. She prides herself as being an older and plus size Lindy Hopper in her blog biggirlslindyhoptoo.blogspot.com which encourages swing dancing free from stigma. She dances socially throughout New York City. She competes in various competitions always happy to note that she has won 3rd place at Lincoln Center’s MidSummer Night Swing and 2nd Alhambra Ballroom Jazz Vespers competition with her then 15 year old dance partner Brandon Barker laughingly “stating age is nothing but a number”. She is an avid supporter of swing dancing by sponsoring students in different swing communities. She attends weekly social dances in NYC. She loves to galvanize her Harlem Lindy Family and Swingout Group members to attend social dance through text and email. She travels outside of New York City to support the lindy, blues and balboa communities in other states. She is the creator of LuckyLindysNYC undergarments for dancers and yoga enthusiasts which has become a hit with many in the swing dance community. Ultimately, Julia says she is “a jazz lover that shares the African American experience through dance.”
Marie N’diaye
Dr. Marie N'diaye (PhD) is a Lindy Hop and African American Jazz dance choreographer, performer and educator as well as a dance researcher.
A true scientist (She obtained her PhD in Neuroimmunology from Karolinska Institute, Stockholm Sweden in 2018), Marie loves history and facts. She has been applying her scientific method and dance education to conduct an embodied practice-based research of Jazz dance through the study of original video clips and collaborations with many established dancers. She has also researched the cultural and social context of the Jazz dance era through literature study and interviews of artists. Her main focus is on the African American Jazz Women and Chorines (chorus girls) of the time. In 2023, Marie completed the Choreomundus Program, an International Master in Dance Knowledge, Practice, and Heritage. This program focuses on dance and other movement systems as cultural heritage and includes Ethnochoreology, Anthropology of Dance, Dance Studies, and Heritage Studies.
Marie worked and danced with the fantastic teachers of the Cat's Corner Studio in Montreal, Canada and Chicago Swing Dance Studio in Stockholm, Sweden. She also teaches internationally, in France, Spain, England, Australia, Russia, USA, China, Korea, South Africa... as well as at the world famous Herräng Dance Camp in Sweden.
Currently, Marie is also leading Collective Voices for Change a non-profit organization created together with other dancers and scholars in order to propose a platform to address social issues in the Jazz dance community. The current focus of CVFC is to address the issues of cultural appropriation and racial inequities in the dance scene.
LaTasha Barnes
LaTasha “Tasha” Barnes is an internationally recognized and awarded dancer, educator, coach, Tradition-bearer and cultural ambassador. Based in New York, Barnes is globally celebrated for her musicality, athleticism, and joyful presence throughout the cultural traditions she bears: House, Hip-Hop, Waacking, Vernacular Jazz, and Lindy Hop. Her expansive artistic, competitive and performative skills have made her a frequent collaborator to Dorrance Dance, Singapore based Timbre Arts Group, Ephrat Asherie Dance as well as many international Jazz/Lindy Hop and Urban Arts festivals like the International Lindy Hop Championships (ILHC), Summer Dance Forever, and Ladies of Hip-Hop Festival. Expanding the scope of impact for her communities Barnes recently earned her self-designed Master's in Ethnochoreology, Black Studies and Performance Studies thru New York University Gallatin School (2019). Her thesis and continuing research are working to bridge the gap between communities of practice and academic cultural dance research, performance, preservation and pedagogy. In concert with these efforts she is honored to be a part of the creative team developing the ground-breaking stage production Swing Out, bringing the passion and power of Lindy Hop and it’s community to the concert stage. Accolades and goals aside, Barnes' forever purpose is to inspire fellow artists and arts enthusiasts to cultivate an authentic sense of self in their creative expressions and daily lives.