Aleksandr Valuiskikh and Dina Waluyo (Aleks and Dina) are social swing dancers, competitors and hobby musicians. Aleks started dancing the Lindy Hop in 2013 in his hometown of Smolensk in Russia, and Dina picked it up in 2016 in Toronto. Separated by an ocean and offset by three years, the dance’s joyful, improvised and musical nature deeply resonated with both of them. Aleks and Dina quickly fell in love with the dance, started attending various workshops and classes, learned from local and international instructors and began teaching about two years after they began dancing. They met at a workshop in Toronto in 2018, a few months after Aleks’ big move to Canada. They have been dancing, teaching, travelling, choreographing and competing together since.  

Their shared values of partnership, improvisation and musicality drew them to start practicing together. Aleks carves a lot of space for whoever he dances with and seeks to feed off his dance partners’ creativity on the dance floor. Dina believes in equal collaborative partnership and is a big advocate of followers actively influencing the direction of the dance. Their collective background in music, combined with Aleks’ technicality and Dina’s expressiveness, create chemistry on the dance floor. As teachers, they strive to deliver lessons that are challenging yet engaging and fun. They have placed at and won multiple local and international Lindy Hop competitions. 

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