Scott and his Dragons’ Den journey featured in the London Evening Standard on Monday 21st of July. Read more about Scott and the wonderful growth that Swing Patrol London has experienced in the last few years:
Scott Cupit, who moved to London from Australia with his company Swing Patrol five years ago, is working with Deborah Meaden — and a £65,000 investment — after appearing on the BBC2 show last night…
Before Mr Cupit founded Swing Patrol, the Lindy Hop and other dances from the Thirties and Forties were taught by only a handful of troupes in the capital. But Cupit’s dance school has helped bring the movement into the mainstream. It teaches around 1,200 students every week at 27 venues across the capital.
It has featured on television shows including Blue Peter and Call The Midwife, and at festivals including Secret Garden Party and Latitude. Mr Cupit, 48, who lives in Forest Gate, won three of the five dragons over by giving them a dance class — even though they did not go for his original proposal…
“Universally the group is absolutely thrilled but we don’t know where this is going to take us. Everybody is just so excited. They can’t believe our little school is getting all this attention.”
In 2009 he danced on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square for Antony Gormley’s One & Other project. He was joined by 100 Swing Patrol dancers at ground level, which resulted in an impromptu swing dance class with spectators. He was named by the Evening Standard as one of the project’s top ten performers. But he said it was a “hard” journey to get the school where it is now. He added:
“I was just going outside Tube stations (to promote classes) five years ago and if we had 10 people at a class that would be great for us…We’ve had so much good growth, especially in east London, we have 160 people at our Angel class now. It’s amazing . In east London in particular the whole fashion, all the ingredients were there to facilitate and it’s such a fun thing that people come back and bring their friends.”
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