Teachers & Judges
For the occasion, we've gathered a nice selection of artists from Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa to join us!
Teachers
Ashley & Mohammad
Montreal, QC
Based in Montréal (Tiohtià:ke), Ashley and Mohammad have been dancing together since 2015 and teaching and coaching since 2018. Their partnership is rooted in a shared creative practice, shaped by years of improvisation, curiosity, and a love of jazz music. Together, they have coached performance troupes, travelled, and competed nationally and internationally. While their competitive experience has played a role in shaping their partnership, social dancing remains at the heart of their practice.
Their classes invite dancers to deepen their relationship with jazz music while exploring the dialogue between partnership, musicality, and responsive movement. With deep respect for the foundations and cultural roots of Lindy Hop, they create space for curiosity, play, and individual expression.
Ishaaq Jiffry
Toronto, ON
Ishaaq (he/him), based in Toronto, is a passionate dancer and teacher of Lindy Hop, Solo Jazz and Collegiate Shag. He discovered jazz at a young age, spending his childhood playing sax at home alongside his brothers on trombone and trumpet, jazz music simply woven into everyday household life. That early love of the music found a new home in 2016, when a friend brought him to the Ottawa Swing Dance Society, and he discovered a whole community dancing to the sounds he'd loved his whole life.
Affectionately named "iShag" by friends, Ishaaq adores Collegiate Shag and has spent the last several years creating and building shag communities across Canada. In 2017, he learned Collegiate Shag in California from Steve Sayer and Karine Hermes and was completely absorbed by the dance, drawn to its ability to glide calmly across the floor one song and turn explosive and high energy the next. Back in Ottawa in 2018, he started a Collegiate Shag scene from scratch, then did it again in Quebec City in 2022, running 10-12 week teaching sessions, coaching a shag troupe, and teaching workshops for two years. Building community has always been at the center of this work for him, and today he supports his local shag scene and travels to teach wherever the opportunity arises. He’s very excited to share this passion with you.
Alongside his Shag journey, Ishaaq has spent the last four years deep in competitive swing dance. He was a member of Quebec City's Les Ambassadeurs, a pro troupe with podium finishes, and has placed at numerous events himself, including 1st place at CSC 2025. In his teachings he invites dancers to play, to find real confidence in themselves, to develop their own personal enjoyment and connection to the music and their partners, and to leave with a deeper understanding of the history and culture of the Black American dances that he participates in.
Laura Smith
Ottawa, ON
Laura started dancing in 2004, when the name of the game was to do as many acrobatics as possible, and people thought Mambo #5 was a pretty great swing song. She's been dancing, teaching, and coaching in Ottawa for a frightening number of years, and has performed from Vancouver to Halifax, but mostly here in the capital. She is a founder of O-Town Showdown and of Side Street Swing, a professional swing dance school. The school sadly closed its doors as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and since then she has been focused on raising her young children, volunteering in her community, and dancing whenever she can.
Laura's proudest moments in dance come from watching students fall in love with dancing, and from seeing them improve, look for new opportunities, and start projects of their own.
Alex, Bill, Alec & Paul
Ottawa, ON
Alex (from the Bytown Strutters), Bill and Paul (from the Ottawa Swing Dance Society) and Alec, 4 dancers from Ottawa with much experience to share, will be joining forces at Swing 'U' Out to bring you an workshop on... AERIALS! 🎼 "Come Fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away...." ;)
Judges
Ashley, Mohammad and Ishaaq will be joined by two other talented dancers to judge the competitions: Nicholas Tran and Alana Hock!
Nicholas Tran
Montreal, QC
Nicholas’s passion for jazz dance stems from being a jazz music lover back when Youtube’s highest resolution was 480p. An indeterminate amount of years later, he entered the world of Lindyhop and jazz dance via a lucky roll of collegiate clubs. While his formative years dancing had a greater focus on avoiding paperwork, being coerced into scene organizing, and sustaining the swing dance subreddit; he has been tackling the breadth and depth of jazz dance training in recent years. Nicholas can be found nowadays in Montreal, listening to obscure Mingus and Hampton deep-cuts, tap dancing at 2am, and plotting to drag everyone around him into achieving their jazz dance dreams.
Alana Hock
Ottawa, ON
This Ottawa native has studied Jazz, Tap & Swing in New York, Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto, Sweden, Mexico and Tokyo with some of the world’s finest. Ever in demand, she has taught dance for over 35 years.
Career highlights include: choreographing the hit Disney television show Jojo’s Circus, having the honor of teaching numerous times with the Ambassador of Lindy Hop Frankie Manning, and being selected to teach 800 students at the final segment at Ottawa’s Bust A Move along side of the late fitness legend, Richard Simmons. As a guest teacher, she has taught in Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Syracuse, Buffalo and New Hampshire. As a dancer, she has been featured at the Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto’s Harbourfront, Timex Watches as well as on CBC, YTV, City TV, Treehouse’s – This is Daniel Cook and was a featured tap dancer in Juno award winning, Kellylee Evans sold out show at the NAC.
Alana’s warmth, support and hundred-kilowatt smile set her apart. She’ll motivate and inspire you to go as high as you dare.
