SPECIAL GUESTS

Meet the Living Legends

Take the unique opportunity to be inspired by the experiences and stories of the swing dance legends.

Sonny AllenUSA

Sonny Allen is a professional Swing and Tap dancer, choreographer, musician and singer, who has been dancing Lindy Hop at the famous Savoy Ballroom in New York and Mambo at the Palladium Ballroom in Manhattan since the 1950s.

He is also the 1958 Harvest Moon Ball Champion, achieving 1st place with Marcella Washington, even though Barbara Billups had been his regular dance partner since 1956.

As the founder and leader of the dance troupe “Sonny Allen and the Rockets,” featuring fellow Savoy ballroom dancers, such as Sugar Sullivan and Barbara Billups, he toured successfully and worked with jazz greats such as Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett, Ruth Brown and Eartha Kitt.

With a wide range of dance styles such as Lindy Hop, Mambo, Foxtrot and Tap under his belt, Sonny developed his own unique dance style and uses his vast historical and technical knowledge of the dance for classes, lectures and history discussions. Don’t miss this opportunity at RTSF.

Barbara BillupsUSA

Barbara Billups is a dancer and singer, who started dancing Jive, Ballroom and a range of solo dances at school, during the 1940s.

During the 1950s she started dancing at the famous Savoy Ballroom in New York, where she was quickly embraced by the Savoy Ballroom dancers such as George Sullivan, while social dancing with the likes of Al Minns and Leon James to live music from bands such as Count Basie’s.

She developed a love of acrobatic aerials and fast Lindy Hop, achieving 3rd place in the 1958 Harvest Moon Ball Competition with Willie Posey, and later became a singer and dancer in Sonny Allen and the Rockets, a dance troupe that toured all over the USA.

These days Barbara is keen to dance and share her passion for dance, regularly teaching with both Sugar Sullivan and Joseph Sewell. Don’t miss her exciting classes at RTSF to celebrate 100 years of Lindy Hop.