Peter Flahiff

Multi-Style Swing Dance Instructor • DJ • Lecturer • Master of Ceremonies • Dance & Music Historian

Based in the beautiful Pacific Northwest region of the United States, Peter Flahiff travels the world bringing his individual take on the style, philosophy, and heart of the music and dances of the Swing Era. A beloved voice in the community, Peter has built his well-respected reputation for decades, despite almost never participating in dance competitions. His insistence on sticking to his passion for the social dancing heart of these dance styles has brought him to communities large and small, and to each he brings his signature grace and approachability.

Peter thinks that the first seeds of his love for swing and jazz music probably came from the great music in old Warner Brothers and Disney cartoons. In childhood, he developed an odd attachment to recordings of radio show broadcasts from the 1930s and 1940s which featured lots of swinging jazz music. After high school, Peter decided to stand out from the prevailing grunge style and began wearing three-piece suits and actively listening to and learning about jazz. Working his way backward from John Coltrane and Miles Davis, through Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, on back to Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Count Basie, Peter was primed to fall in love with the burgeoning Swing Revival subculture when he happened onto it in 1994. Deeply nerdy and committed to following his own passions, Peter threw himself into the earliest days of the subculture before it hit the mainstream. As the years passed, Peter’s devotion to swing dancing and swinging music has only grown, fed by his insistence on continuing to expand and change his personal dance style and teaching methods.

To this day, Peter Flahiff continues to enjoy traveling anywhere and everywhere, bringing his love of social swing dancing to everyone he meets.