Weekly Friday swing dance classes led by Nikki Santilli, with beginner, improver and intermediate sessions for OUDC members and the general public.
Friday Night Swing Time is back at The Oxford University Club on Mansfield Road, running every Friday of the university term from 16 October to 4 December 2026. It's a collaboration between Swing Dance Summertown and the Oxford University Dancesport Club (OUDC), and the organisers bill it as bringing 'Town and Gown' together: the classes run as a community session open to OUDC members and the general public alike, and you don't need a partner to join in—you just rock up and pay at the door.
The whole night is led by Nikki Santilli, a professional dance teacher, performer and choreographer who specialises in swing styles and has run a school in London for the past twenty years. Her alumni include dancers like Jenny Thomas, who's choreographed for the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing. The repertoire reaches back to the United States of the 1920s and 1930s, rooted in African-American communities and the jazz scene of Harlem, where the Lindy Hop was born at the Savoy Ballroom. Each term the series also feeds into a New Year's Eve Swing Dance Party.
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There are three classes on the go each night, so you can pick the one that fits your level: the beginner's class starts at 6:00pm, the improver class at 7:00pm, and the intermediate class at 8:00pm. The classes are downstairs in the studio, while the practice and social dancing happen upstairs in the bar, so there's plenty of room to work through what you've just learned. It's £7 for OUDC members and £13 for non-members, and OUDC membership is £38 for the year.
