Gus Giordano Dance School teaches all of the the ideals and qualities I want for my kids…read more They work to treat all people the same and treat them well, they are positive and happy, community involved, fun and they make kids pay attention and listen all while being nice. Our 5 year old started nearly 2.5 years ago and we have been very happy with the program and what she has learned. She is not a dance pro but has basics down and still wants to go to class. She is super excited about her big show each year and is confident on a HUGE stage and being in front of people. She feels important and feels proud. I went to college with many ex dancers and have heard how awful balet can be and Gus has ballerina looking kids, smaller kids, bigger kids, boys who can dance, boys who can't dance and all kinds of kids all having fun. Her teachers Nicole Weingarten, Lauren and Amy have all been so sweet and amazing. I just cannot say enough about how thankful I am that they are in Andersonville and part of our community. I am not a person who intrinsically trusts people's intentions and I have made the mistake in the past of thinking nice people cannot really be that nice but these people really are. I have been late to pick up and they are amazingly nice. I am on the board for our school and they support our local school. These people are good even when they don't have to be. I appreciate them as a place that teaches children, as a local business and as a community member.

My 16 year old son visited from NY for their summer jazz intensive, and it was the most incredible…read moreexperience for him! He was challenged with working with the best choreographers, and can't stop talking about it. He really felt like he was part of a family after the first day! He's already looking forward to next summer!!

Our 4 y/o daughter started taking classes at Volta a couple of months ago and has been loving it so…read morefar. Ms. Dee and Ms. Jade are extremely professional, dedicated, flexible and wonderful with kids. T heir focus on creating a community and making dance accessible for all children in the area is genuine. For example, they didn't insist on my daughter coming with ballet clothes and shoes, which are costly. I highly recommend this studio!!

Mx Dee is the greatest! My kiddo went there for ballet and hip hop and loved every moment of it…read more We're a Goethe Elementary family and the love for Volta is huge at our school. Their pajama nights are awesome as well - enough time for the parents to grab dinner on their own. So happy to have this in our neighborhood!

Coming to Dance Center is the highlight of our week and we can hardly express in words how much we…read morelove it. I started taking group classes and they were fun, engaging, and the instructors do a great job of making everyone feel comfortable. The best part was that you didn't have to bring a partner! After some convincing, my husband agreed to take private lessons for more personalized instruction and we are very pleased with our instructor, Jesus, for his knowledge and professionalism. We highly recommend coming here whether your interested in learning something new or wanting to progress you skills in a variety of styles. Dance Center and it's amazing staff has it all!

It's a great spot to learn dance. There's a main open large room for the bigger classes, and a…read morefew side rooms for smaller classes as well. There's 1 right across from the entrance, 3 in a hallway offset from the main open room, and then 1 more in the back, past the hallway and across from the bathrooms. As I was attending this venue as a rented space for a Brazilian Zouk weekender event, I didn't interact with any of the Dance Center Chicago staff-- but they have a great space!

We've enjoyed a number of performances over the years- I ask for HSD tickets for my birthday every…read moreyear- and we always have a blast. Every time! The choreography is so innovative and the dancers are incredibly strong, each with breathtaking range and immense depth of expression. A night at the Harris Theatre watching Hubbard Street dancers perform followed by dinner at nearby Acanto is my absolute favorite thing to do in Chicago!!

I love this place. It's great for adults, whether or not you have prior dance experience…read more Signing up for class is really easy, especially your first time. Just arrive early and sign up & pay with the person at the front desk. I've been to the Intermediate Modern and the Beginning Hip-Hop classes. In both, people are very accepting -- I have not gotten any judgmental vibes from other dancers, which is awesome! (Because growing up in the dance world, competition is all around you.) I have been driving here form the northern suburbs, and there is free street parking in the evenings. Just read the street signs & you should be fine!

I've been a student for a about a year and a half now and its been a great journey. From the start…read moreLatin Rhythms was great from Ale at the front desk being awesome to the instructors teaching. At first i was nervous, I had never been on a dance floor before but they walk you through it, teach you some basics and they make it fun. Everyone always asks who I dance with (as a single guy) and thats my favorite part; its extremely social, you rotate partners every couple minutes and you slowly get to meet new people who will quickly become your best friends. A year and a half in, i now call myself a dancer and ive met more friends here than in the previous 4 years. So after getting over the forced fun awkwardness of the basics the second big thing for me was going out and dancing which i did at the Latin Rhythms socials. The positive reinforcement that i got from students and teachers was great, everyone has to start with the basics and everyone has been there. It really is an entire community built around helping you to get better and enjoy it. No one is a master from the get go and everyone just enjoys a good dance, doesn't need to be fancy. So here in my journey, I'm taking 5 classes a week, most of my friends are dancers and I'm learning salsa and bachata. I highly recommend latin rhythms because of the instructors, they have something for everyone and they are the best. I do take classes at other studios but for the beginner, the fundamentalist or if you want to work on a specialization, this is the best place in town. Its the people, the community and the environment that makes this place special.

I love this studio! The instructors spend time with each student during the class ensuring everyone…read morecontinues to excel. I've made many friends here as well. I appreciate the positive fun atmosphere.

My daughter just completed her first ballet class with Extensions Dance Company. It was wonderful…read more She learned a lot and was inspired to learn and grow in dance. The company did a wonderful job transitioning to online courses during the pandemic. They even pulled off an amazing Zoom recital that our families could enjoy.

This is an amazing place. My daughter has been taking classes here for three years and is part of…read moretheir Company. The founders have created an incredible community that is compassionate, supportive, and warm yet rigorous and demanding. The kids and parents are all well grounded. This is not your typical "Dance Mom's" place. The environment is fun and approachable yet serous dance happens here.

Amazing studio Great teachers and a beautiful studio…read moreEveryone there is warm and inviting...great vibe. Plentiful parking surrounding the studio and coffee shops, retail and restaurants everywhere. Very safe.

I took a salsa class here with a friend & we loved it! It was a small group, but the perfect amount…read morefor the group and combo work we did throughout the hour. The instructor was so helpful throughout the class, and kept those good vibes going! I thoroughly enjoyed the pace of the class, and appreciated the amazing fellow students who were our leads throughout class - an incredible experience & workout - we will be back!

Nice teachers, welcoming environment clean space i've gone several times for different classes all…read moreof them good.

Super posh dance center. Came for a 90's/00's dance class with Dre. It was a high energy but low…read morepressure class. I really enjoyed the class and the studio that the class was held in. Our class was in studio #5. The sound system was good. Unsure if I loved the floors, but they worked good for this class. Ample spacing for our class which had nearly 2 dozen participants. The space it self is really comprehensive. I saw multiple bathrooms and a gender-neutral bathroom. There is at least 5 separate dance spaces. Each space was arranged depending on dance style. I saw a room with several barre. The general area also boosted several areas to just chill while waiting on a loved to finish a class. On this day...all the kiddos were taking classes. So many little one excited to take their dance classes. It was cute because this little girl kep staring at our class through the window. Highly recommend seeing all the offerings at this dance center. I was surprised by the many offerings they have. I want to try a beginner hip-hop but we will see. Tip: Parking is located around the building on street. Mostly free but get there with time to look. I found it easier to just park off Belmont and walk.

My now-husband and I used Chicago Dance for choreography for our first dance at our wedding. We met…read morewith Sam for our consultation and talked her through our experience level (limited), some constraints (my husband is deaf with cochlear implants), and our expectations for what we wanted to get out of the sessions. While Sam had her work cut out for her with us, she never let her cards show and was 100% patient and kind throughout ever lesson. We ended up purchasing 8 sessions leading up to the wedding and we HIGHLY recommend Chicago Dance and Sam, specifically! The options are endless: whether you want to just learn some different dance types and be able to use those lessons to freestyle or if you want 100% choreography... Chicago Dance is the way to go. A couple highlights. 1. Sam was energetic and excited to try all kinds of new steps / tricks and she made us willing participants. She also valued our feedback and ensured that we were confident in what we were doing. She incorporated more of the steps/moves we enjoyed and flexed if we were not comfortable with anything. We laughed a lot playing around with new successful and totally unsuccessful attempts at tricks. Given our experience level, I was so impressed with her ability to articulate feedback and say the right things to make anything "complicated" seem simple and feasible! 2. We started looking forward to our dance lessons. Considering this was still in the middle of COVID, aside from dinner dates, we had not really done much in the way of date nights. We ended up loving our lessons and looking forward to these "date nights" as we were having so much fun and felt like it was driving more connection. 3. We were torn about which song to dance to. For the first two lessons, we ended up learning waltz basics and started learning choreography to one song. We were practicing at home one day and decided to try with a different song, and fell in love. Sam quickly jumped into action helping us play with the different types of dance we can incorporate into the new song. She cut the music based on my suggestions seamlessly. No joke - she provided full service.

Great instructors. Welcoming and inclusive environment. Good variety of dance types. We took…read moreclasses for our wedding first dance and it was a very good experience. The space is clean with good mirrors and floors, and separate rooms so several classes can meet at the same time. Close to the CTA brown line as well! No free parking nearby but there is metered parking and a paid parking lot nearby.

We saw Midsummer Night's Dream by the Joffrey Ballet at the Lyric Opera and, no, this is not a…read moreversion of the William Shakespeare play, but choreographed by Alexander Ekman. We also saw this when it premiered in 2018. It is a celebration of the summer solstice and Scandinavian traditions. In my opinion it is a mashup of Midsommar and Cirque du Soleil if you substitute the acrobats and contortionists with dancers and Swedish elders being pushed off a cliff with lifelike mannequins thrown from a floating table. It opens with a man in bed being woken by his alarm on Friday, June 21 and a woman greets him with hay? straw? And they join into a crazy scene of people throwing hay? straw? with the hay soaring in graceful arcs across the stage. There are frenzied dances, a large dining table that soars into the sky, and comedic bits. After intermission things get wild, with fish falling from the sky, people falling from the sky, a naked chef and more frenzied dancing, with an echo back to the hay throwing. There is a beautiful singer, Anna von Hausswolff, with a soaring, haunting voice, is she dressed like Elsa from Frozen or hair like cousin It? The singer and the wonderful music by Mikael Karlsson and the wonderful musicians make this an otherworldly fable. And the clock fast forwards to June 21 of the next year and it begins again. Is this a dream? Unfortunately this was the final performance of this run.

Even though I knew this Nutcracker ballet version had been revised to occur in the 1930s Chicago…read moreworld fair, I was unprepared for the lack of fantasy and beauty and elegance that is central to the theme of Nutcracker. The entire set was cheap card tables and chipped furniture, a nutcracker doll that was barely visible and with little explanation as to why it changed hands among the performers- who danced in raggedy clothing, maybe one actual tutu for five minutes(?). There was very little actual ballet that I could ascertain, leaving me with impression that a lot of the performers were on holiday. It's really unfortunate that something so beautiful could be made into a somewhat depressing and largely incoherent show. So many people who come to see this I'm sure would normally be inspired to come back for a different show, but this performance so much missed the mark for what should be an upbeat holiday, I'm not inclined to take the risk