DouDouLe

Mishel Jemma Finlayson

Born with a restless soul and free spirit, Mishel Jemma Finlayson has a passion for travelling, languages and exploring new cultures.

A native of Brisbane, Australia, Mishel grew up surrounded by dance, with her parents passing on their love of ballet and ballroom. From the age of four she studied jazz, ballet and tap, but it wasn’t until her first trip to Rio de Janeiro at 21 that she developed her passion for Latin dance.

Mishel has a Bachelor of Languages, with a major in Japanese and minors in Spanish and French, and is fluent in Brazilian Portuguese. She is a qualified English language instructor, and credits her university teacher training to helping her become an efficient, inspiring and vibrant dance instructor.

Mishel undertook the majority of her Latin training in Rio, studying extensively under the guidance of Brazilian dance masters such as Adilio Porto, Jimmy de Oliveira, Renata Pecanha, Carlinhos de Jesus and Jaime Aroxa at their respective dance academies.

Since returning to Australia, Mishel has been a guest Latin instructor and performer at the Sydney Salsa Congress, Melbourne Latin Festival, Adelaide Salsa Festival, Gold Coast Doudoule Dance Camp and Brisbane October Salsa Fest and Brazil Central Congress. Her samba group, Sambaliscious, has performed with renowned Brazilian drumming band OLODUM (as seen in Michael Jackon’s video clip ‘They don’t care about us’), Latin singer Adam Lopez, Brazilian band “The View from Madeleine’s Couch”, Afro-cuban band “Chukale”, and Gold Coast- based Brazilian band “Samba 4U”, as well as performing at the Malaysian World Latin Congress.

Recently Mishel has teamed up with leading hip hop dancer Jay-Jay Jenkins to launch Urban Artistrie, a company which strives to fuse traditional Latin dance with urban street styles. Together, they have developed Street Zouk, a fresh new style of Zouk Lambada that encompasses elements of hip hop, popping and bellydance, danced to RnB remixes. In doing this, they hope to merge the Latin and Urban dance worlds and ultimately inspire more people worldwide to dance!

Jay-Jay Jenkins

Jay-Jay was born in Sydney, Australia and started dancing at the age of 16 when he first saw Breakdancing in the 1980’s movie ‘Beat Street’. Inspired, he decided to take classes and within 12 months, he found a true passion for dance, expanding his skills with other styles such as popping, locking, hip hop and jazz. After 2 years he was recruited by one of Brisbane’s most notable hip hop dancers, Errol Cenita, director of Fresh Elements Dance studio, where he was trained as an instructor. But Jay Jay didn’t stop there, vanishing from the scene for 6 months in order to study the emerging style ‘Krump’, as seen in the world famous documentary ‘Rize’. He came back to compete and win various competitions, most notably Groove Brisbane 2005. With 5 styles under his belt, he then turned to Ballet and Contemporary to improve his control, balance and lines, which greatly contributed to his clean and precise hip hop style.

In 2009 Jay Jay’s focus shifted to the Latin world, in particular to traditional Brazillian Zouk-Lambada. Upon learning this style, he teamed up with one of the industry’s finest Latin dancers, Mishel Finlayson, to create a new style they have named ‘Street Zouk’. Merging the strengths and backgrounds of both instructors, Street Zouk is a combination of traditional Zouk-Lambada fused with urban and street style. This ‘explosive’ new style has wowed audiences and dancers alike with its creativity, freshness and attention to musicality. Jay Jay and Mishel hope to spread this style not only throughout Australia, but all over the world, encouraging more people to take up the art of dance.