Linda, a native of Chicago, attended Simeon Vocational High School. Linda completed her Bachelor’s in Communication Arts at Loyola University and recently completed her master’s degree in March of 2019 at DePaul University. Linda joined The Joffrey’s Teaching Artist staff in 2008, promoted to program supervisor in 2015 and served as Interim Director of Community Engagement in 2019. Linda was promoted to Director of Community Engagement in 2020.
Linda has worked on many dance projects with students from across the Chicago land area that participated in the Joffrey Ballet’s Community Engagement Program. The students participated in the half time show of Chicago Bulls, performances at the Auditorium Theatre, Pritzker Theatre in Millennium Park, and Navy Pier.
Formal ballet training began for Ms. Swayze with Walter Camryn and Bentley Stone along with studying with Larry Long at Ruth Page before moving to New York to dance with The Dance Theatre of Harlem where she was a member for seventeen years.
While with the Dance Theatre of Harlem, she travelled extensively domestically and internationally. Ms. Swayze participated in the closing ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, travelled as part of a cultural exchange program to perform in the Soviet Union at the St. Petersburg and Kirov Theatres, and performed in the television ballet production of DTH’s “Creole Giselle” aired on PBS.
DTH’s varied repertory allowed Ms. Swayze to dance classical and contemporary works in principal and soloist roles. After leaving DTH she returned to Chicago and taught at Homer Bryant’s Multi-Cultural Dance Center along with teaching dance in numerous Chicago Public Schools.
Presently Linda is working with the Joffrey Ballet in the Community Engagement Department along with serving on the panel for diversity, equity, and inclusion at the Joffrey Ballet. Ms. Swayze is committed to dance education while assisting schools in providing high quality arts to the students.