About Dance Santa Barbara

Meet the Dance Instructors

Jonathan BixbyJonathan started dancing at 15 and even enjoyed being a regular dancer on American Bandstand with Dick Clark in the late 1960's. After graduating from UCSC, he became a kindergarten teacher until he moved to Santa Barbara in 1979 to begin a dance career. By locating celebrated dancers like Dean Collins, Frankie Manning and Maxie Dorf from the 1940's, he and his partner, Sylvia Sykes,  learned various forms of Swing and Balboa from the masters and has been passing on this knowledge for more than three decades. For a more extensive biography of Jonathan and Sylvia, just go to this link. Jonathan also co-hosts the First and Third Friday Swing Dance at the Carrillo Ballroom.

Here's a video of Jonathan and Sylvia with Team USA and their first place performance at the US Open Swing Dance Championships.

Bill and Cindy

 

Bill Elmer has been a competition dancer for the past 7 years, twice capturing the California Triple Crown along with numerous wins at UCWDC and CWDI events dancing both ProAm and Couples. He has been teaching for the past 4+ years. Currently he offers group classes in Country Two Step at the Carrillo Recreation Center. His partner, Cindy, has been dancing her whole life. She's truly a natural and has studied many forms of dance. And as a partner, no one could ask for a more accomplished dancers.  Here's a link for Bill's full schedule and registration information.For class information, here's the link.