Diana Castillo is widely recognized as one of the best Swing dance instructors in the Bay Area. Her lindy technique comes from only the best instructors and masters including Frankie Manning, Norma Miller, Steven Mitchell, and Chazz Young. Combined with her masterful teaching style her classes can help anyone with two left quickly become a confident dancer. It's the secret that earned her classes recognition as the "Very Best Place to Learn Swing Jitterbug."

Diana has been teaching dance for more than two decades. During the late 70's, Diana was a regular dancer on the PBS series, "Austin City Limits". Her passion for Swing and dance instruction earned her the title of the "Queen of Swing" in her hometown and "live music capitol of the world," Austin, Texas.

In addition to teaching Swing dance, Diana started producing for local television. Her first series was entitled, "Let's Have A Party" and featured live music and dance. Producing "Let's Have A Party" would take Diana twice a year to the musically rich neighboring state of Louisiana to explore the music and dance scene. It was there that she discovered the world of Cajun and zydeco music. Diana was adopted by her favorite Cajun dancers, Earl and Geri, who to this day keep her in touch with the latest steps danced at Mulate's and Randol's ( in the Acadian Triangle). The trip to Louisiana in search of the hottest new dance step continues to be one dance habit that has been impossible to kick.

It was 1984 and the world, which was descending on New Orleans for the World's Fair, was discovering the exciting sounds of Louisiana roots music. They heard the legendary hot zydeco sounds of Rockin' Dopsie and the traditional cajun sounds of performers like D.L. Menard and BeauSoleil.

Diana was now calling New Orleans home and for the next five years would produce, "Le Bon Ton Roule," a music and dance series to showcase the musical talents of the artists that were creating the sounds and dance styles would soon begin to sweep across the country. Diana would continue to teach her very popular Swing classes but now was also teaching Cajun, and Zydeco. Athough many people wanted to dance to these styles of music, formal instruction was hard to find. Diana's natural ability to break-down complex routines into easy to learn steps made her classes at the New Orleans JCC an overnight success.

"I just couldn't get enough of Cajun and Zydeco music ... the sound is so infectious. I met Clifton Chenier (the King of Zydeco) ten years before I moved to New Orleans when his travels on the music circuit brought him through Texas. I think I caught the "fever" from the music coming out of that man ... he was playing zydeco and Swing with an accordian ... it was incredible," recalls Diana.

Diana's enthusiam and dance "fever" spread when she moved here to San Francisco and began teaching East Coast Swing, Cajun and zydeco dance classes. With the Bay Area's resurgence of Swing dance, she added Swing-Jitterbug and Lindy Hop classes to her teaching schedule and rekindled her first love, Swing dance.