Nobody puts Baby in a corner…read more
Really, that's all you need to know. That and... come on guys, do you want to be Johnny's cousin manning the record player (excuse me, Ipod) again, or would you rather be Johnny singing "She's Like the Wind"?
Er...ok that came out totally wrong.
This is the Dance Institute, a beautiful brand new school built from the ground up specifically for the purpose of teaching you to shake your maracas or for your children's pointe preparation for Julliard. You might not think this is too special, what with dance schools all over the place, and Austin still not widely considered a bastion of dancing, despite the fact that Ballet Austin is the 4th largest ballet company in the U.S. But typically dance schools are constructed in preexisting spaces, and they do the best they can. This place is, well, bangin', from the design standpoint. Some pro dance folks have shown up here from out of town already to give workshops, and say it is one of the most killer dance spaces they have ever been in. Open, airy, that sort of thing. So if you care about that, voila! A very nice space to learn in.
The Dance Institute's logo incorporates a couple doing a hot salsa or ballroom type number, and it is the partner dances that DI is primarily designed for (at least in terms of sheer physical space and adult classes), if you ask me. Their space is huge though, so really they can teach anything they want in there. In addition to the ballroom dance classes that start you on your way to Dancing With The Stars type stuff, and social dancing classes like salsa or two step, they also teach pilates and yoga. I am not familiar with their fitness classes, so I cannot comment on them, but they do have them.
They also have regular social events (with byo beverages, last time Monichacha O and I attended) which are preceded by mini lessons in a variety of social dances that you can choose to pay for, or not, if you are already skilled in that sort of thing.
On my 5 year journey to learn how to do some ballroom dancing here in Austin, I have taken lessons from many people, and at most of the schools in town. As I have improved, this has led me to become a picky picky bastard about my teachers. DI has several of the finest in partner dancing that Austin has to offer. And imho, Austin does not offer a whole lot of fine partner-dancing teachers (though I believe their number is slowly increasing).
Teachers I like at DI: my faves there are Sabrina, Kat, and Denis. I do tend to favor the Latin dances, though, so these are the folks I have had experience with who I like, who do latin. Sabrina, the Ballroom Director, has had years of dance training, and uses a lot of crafty plain language descriptions to help you figure out why you can't seem to do a box step after 50 attempts Edison. Kat was a professional ballet dancer and not only teaches the ballet program for kids (I do not think there is an adult ballet program there now) but is a superb salsa dancer and instructor as well. Often she will get folks to go out to salsa dance at local clubs in town. Denis is a former U.S. 10 dance champion (this means that he and his partner competed against other people in ALL the dances they do on dancing with the stars, really really well) from Russia, yet despite being from a country that churns out seriously hardcore ballroom pros sorta like Bela Karolyi makes gymnastics champions, he is quite nice and caters to your ability without making you run through the snow like Stallone in Rocky IV.
Additionally, you can take private lessons from all their folks rather than group classes, and they do lessons for couples getting ready for dancing at their weddings.
Ok, so why not the 5 star?
1. they are located in BFE for a big chunk of Austin - you can see from google maps that Sitio Del Rio is near 2222 and 620. If you don't live close by, you are going to be burning a lot of gas to become Johnny Castle or Baby.
2. they are probably the priciest in town, though with the current state of the economy, perhaps they've got some deals going.
3. The number of truly intermediate to advanced dancers that are available at this point in time, in Austin, who frequent their classes there (or anywhere in town), to do Latin Ballroom, is still pretty low. This probably doesn't apply to most folks in the universe, but it does to me, so.
The Dance Institute is pretty sweet. If they were closer to the heart of Austin, I'd say there is no good reason you shouldn't give it a shot to get your dirty (or Fred Astaire & Ginger Rodgers' style) dancing on.