Tina Heynen
I started dancing in my early teens when I took up Ballroom dancing and have been hooked ever since. I worked my way up to E grade competitive dancing getting into the finals at my first (and last) New Zealand National competition. After that I gave up competitive ballroom dancing to focus on my University studies although I've continued to dance ballroom socially.
After University I worked for a year and then went to live in London where I discovered Ceroc (Modern Jive) which I really enjoyed, I very quickly became involved in helping to teach the dance style (becoming what they call a Taxi dancer) and loved the experience. After two years in London I came back to Auckland and discovered to my joy that Modern Jive was over here as well and have continued to be involved in performance crews (with Le Bop and Ceroc) and continuing to advance my dancing.
In 2004 I discovered Lindy Hop (also sometimes known as Jitterbug) and really enjoyed the fun factor and funky music and retro clothing that goes with this version of Swing dancing.
In 2005 at the Ceroc National competition Robert Cordoba & Deborah Szekely did a performance of West Coast Swing (WCS) it was the first time I'd ever seen the dance style & I fell in love with it. It has the fun factor of Modern Jive and the technique of Ballroom and is a beautifully stylish dance. Since then I've been learning everything that I can about WCS and along with the other dancers who make up swingFX we decided to start teaching this style that we love to dance. We've been teaching since October 2006 and I'm loving being able to share this dance style that I love with the students in our classes.
In 2007 I spent 4 months overseas (3 months in London learning from the fantastic WCS teachers they have there and then a further 3 weeks in the US learning from the top dancers in the genre). I've also been lucky enough to travel to the US in 2008 and 2009 where in 2008 I've placed 2nd in the Sea to Sky Novice Jack & Jill event and in 2009 was a finalist at Swing Niagra Novice Jack & Jill event.
In 2009 the first NZ WCS Nationals were held and myself & Shanon won the professional freestyle category.
Since then our classes have spread to 3 nights per week & we've run two major WCS competitions, our first in 2010 (Southern Skies) which we changed to the New Zealand Open Swing Dance Championships in 2011 and it will continue to run under that name. We were very excited to gain World Swing Dance Council approval for the event which ment that our dancers can now gain internationaly recognised points.
It's been a great joy to see WCS becoming more & more popular here in NZ & am looking forward to seeing where it goes in the next few years.