I can't recommend Dance Connection highly enough! My husband and I worked with Laurie for the first dance at our wedding. We had so much fun in both the group and private sessions. We wanted to learn basic dance moves to look comfortable, but didn't want something too choreographed. Laurie created the perfect routine for us. She patiently taught us several new moves and made us feel comfortable enough that we didn't need to memorize the entire routine step by step. For others looking for wedding dance lessons - there are a lot of chains where the teachers are basically salespeople. They'll upsell you on 10, 20, and more classes and urge you to go with a routine that's not customized. Laurie and Dance Connection are the opposite. We had such a wonderful time, and we've even signed up for more lessons since the wedding. read more

The first dance was something my husband and I were very anxious about before we met Laurie. From the very first phone call, all of our worries melted away. Laurie is not only an amazing instructor, but she seamlessly connects with people to understand their comfort level, what excites them about the dance, and what makes the couple connect. Our choreo was fun, intuitive, and best of all, us. Our first dance is one of the highlights of our day and none of it would've been possible without Laurie and her love and passion for what she does. My husband and I's song is an EDM song, and I figured there was no way we could do a choreographed, formal dance to it for a wedding.. so I presented Laurie with a few options of classic songs we could use instead. Laurie encouraged us to go with "our song" and created a dance with us that worked perfectly. She is professional and organized but dynamic and able to work with couples in the way they need it. Can't wait to dance with Laurie again soon! read more

My husband and I had a wonderful experience with Laurie who helped us prepare our first dance for our wedding. She listened to us and made us feel supported throughout the process, adjusting the lessons to meet our learning needs as well as fulfill our wishes with what we wanted the dance to be like. Laurie is incredibly talented and creative, with a vibrant energy that made the classes fun and engaging. We thoroughly enjoyed working with her and highly recommend her. read more

Laurie is an outstanding dance instructor. Through the wedding workshop and several private lessons, we progressed quickly thanks to her clear, systematic teaching. She introduces new steps at just the right pace, so we built a solid foundation without feeling overwhelmed. I highly recommend Dance Connection. read more

Laurie was amazing. We did the 10 class package and our wedding dance was one of my absolute favorite parts of prepping for our big day. I was so sure I couldn't dance prior to working with Laurie (I tend to be a bit uncoordinated day to day) and she choreographed the most beautiful, elegant dance I could have imagined. The practices became our favorite date nights and we knew the dance so well by the end we literally would practice it just to calm ourselves amongst all the other chaos the wedding brought. Several of my guests even remarked how well and beautifully we dance- everyone was sure we had a background in dance. She's also just a delight of a human. A totally hype woman with unending patience. She gave us so much confidence. read more

We loved working with Laurie!! As we were preparing for our wedding, we first took her group Wedding Workshop, to get the basics down. She was so helpful, knowledgable, and patient. We already felt better about our skill level at the end of the workshop, and came back to take private lessons. It was always so fun learning with Laurie and she really taught us so much. Our choreographed wedding first dance went off perfectly, and our dances with our parents were so much more polished than they would have been without her guidance. I can't recommend her enough! We will be back for other lessons, just for fun :) read more

Laurie taught us our first dance for our wedding within 2 private sessions! It was super last minute as well (2 weeks before the wedding). She essentially choreographed the whole dance overnight. She was a great teacher (especially for my husband who had never taken a dance class in his life), had an awesome vision for our song, and offered constructive feedback. It was really a pleasure working with her. Highly recommend! read more

In the months leading up to our wedding, my fiancé and I signed up for Laurie's three-week Wedding Workshop. It was a great opportunity for us to learn some basic steps and spins before we took a few more private lessons. (Plus, they made for fun date nights!) Laurie is such a wonderful teacher! Her positive energy and lovely personality immediately puts you at ease, it makes the whole experience feel less stressful. She helped us choreograph our first dance so quickly, with easy enough moves that impressed our guests and made for great photos! It was such a great experience working with Laurie in the months before our big day. Can't recommend her enough!! read more

Dancing with Laurie was an amazing experience! My husband and I loved her positive attitude and ability to work with people of all levels of experience. She choreographed us a dance to "Everything" by Michael Buble and we were so, so happy with how our first dance turned out at our wedding. I would highly recommend Laurie to anyone especially couples who are getting married or to just anyone who wants to look good on the dance floor! read more

Dance Connection - The dip - A man and woman are dancing indoors, with the man dipping the woman in a dance pose. The woman is wearing a white dress, and the man is in a dark suit. - Dance Studios Near Me - Brooklyn, New York

As part of getting ready for our wedding, my wife and I took a group class with Laurie and then two additional private classes for a specific dance we working on. Laurie is wonderful, patient, and a really great instructor. She's incredibly kind but also direct, and works hard to instill confidence in you as a student. Would for sure recommend. read more

Working with Laurie in the weeks leading up to our wedding was one of the best decisions we could've made! We started with group classes, and then had several private sessions in which Laurie choreographed and taught us our first dance. We had a two-part dance and used Dancing With The Stars as our inspiration (flash forward to the actual wedding when several guests told us that's what it looked like!) Not only did Laurie create an incredible piece for us, but her warm personality and enthusiasm was truly infectious. We always left with a smile on our faces, and it was such a lovely experience during the more hectic aspects of wedding planning. We enjoyed it so much that we look forward to taking more future classes with Dance Connection just for fun! Thank you for everything, Laurie!! read more

Laurie is an amazing teacher! She's obviously talented at dancing, but she also very talented at teaching. We had such a fun time learning and practicing! My husband (then fiance) and I attended the 3-week wedding dance workshop, and we learned the foxtrot basics. We also opted for private lessons with Laurie because we wanted to do a choreographed dance to "L-O-V-E". She whipped up a simple routine that was very doable and looked great! We took 2 lessons with Laurie and did lots of practicing to a iPhone video of our lesson. We were very prepared! On our wedding day: Funny story is that our DJ played the wrong version of the song, which was 16 beats shorter than the original, so we didn't do our dramatic spin and dip ending (I'm still angry with the DJ). Despite that, we looked great at our dance and received a lot of compliments, including from my tiger mom (!). read more

Dance Connection - Dance Studios Near Me - Brooklyn, New York

We loved learning to dance with Laurie! Seriously. My now husband was vehemently against dancing. We put off taking lessons for a while before our wedding, but finally it was a month before and there was no getting out of it - we needed lessons fast. Laurie took our tiny timeline and got us into a 3 week workshop and a couple private lessons to work on the routine for our first dance. She gave us confidence and made us look like we had some sort of an idea about steps. She is so good that my husband is agreeing to take more lessons for fun (!!!) this is unprecedented. read more

Dance Connection - Dance Studios Near Me - Brooklyn, New York

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Laurie is the best. My wife and I came here for a few private lessons ahead of our wedding. Laurie made the whole process a ton of fun and gave us the swing and ballroom basics that we'll bring to any dance floor we find ourselves on in the future. Cannot recommend Laurie highly enough!! read more

Anyone who can get me to dance in a passable fashion and without hurting myself deserves kudos. The genius in question - Laurie at Dance Connection - is an incredible instructor. I took a pair of Beginner Salsa on 2 Classes here (it did take 2 classes... I said genius, not miracle worker), and Laurie manages to be a fun, positive, enthusiastic instructor while still challenging you to improve. As the only person taking a class as not part of a couple, I had the great advantage of quite a bit of a dancing with Laurie, though the structure of the class - where people rotate and dance with different partners to get an array of styles and experiences - was both excellent practice as well as a great way to foster a sense of class community/encouragement and meet new people. They have several class locations in the North Brooklyn area. Dealing with Dance Connection is a tad analog and informal - think direct emails, awaiting responses and mailing checks more so than online reservations - but I respect that. It may seem frustrating at first in our digital, hyperconnected world - I was anxious to try and reschedule classes that I knew I'd miss - but I honestly think they probably let me in more makeup classes on an ad hoc basis than I had missed. Which kind of sums them up - it's lovely when it feels as if a place providing lessons cares more your success and the quality of your experience than about simply collecting your money. read more

We had such a great time with Laurie! She was patient with different skill levels and made the whole experience really fun.

Laurie was an amazing dance teacher. I took 2 private dance lessons with her (and my fiancé) and 1 private lesson with her and my father for my wedding. Each lesson was fun, easy to follow and we learned very practical dance moves and even remembered the dances after just a few lessons. I highly recommend Laurie and Dance Connection for any of your dancing needs! read more

Dance Connection - Dance Studios Near Me - Brooklyn, New York

My husband and I came here for a few private dance lessons before our wedding. Laurie, who is very friendly and organized, coordinated our lessons for us with Jose Luis. I loved that they really accommodated our schedule. Jose Luis was a wonderful teacher who choreographed a dance for us to Harvest Moon by Neil Young. He kept the dance just challenging enough to push us out of our comfort zone but not too difficult that we couldn't get a grasp on it. We remembered all of our steps and were very happy with how it turned out on the big day! When we have more time, we hope to return to take some classes together. read more

We absolutely loved learning to dance with Laurie! We took the 3 weeks couples intro to wedding dancing class and also two hour long private classes. The 3 week couples class is such an amazing deal ($125 per couple for three whole weeks) and you learn about waltz box-step styles, dips and 3 types of turns. She made it so easy to learn and we looked forward to going after work each week! The hour long private classes we did so we could nail down our first dance choreography and fine tune our skills (turns out in bad at being a follower in ballroom dancing)- which was really worth it. Our wedding guests were surprised and totally amazed by our first dance which was to "Can't take my eyes off of you" by Frankie Vallie. Laurie made us feel so confident and our first dance ended up being my favorite moment of the night! BOOK WITH LAURIE AND YOU WON'T REGRET IT! read more

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My partner and I took two private lessons and a three-class workshop with Laurie, to prepare for our wedding. We had so much fun, and learned so much, especially in the private lessons. We had tried another place in Manhattan, but found it to be high in price and upsell. Working with Laurie felt like working with a knowledgable friend -- she was so outgoing, kind, and effective, and we never felt like she was trying to sell to us. We ended up doing a foxtrot with a few spins and a dip at the wedding, and got so many compliments. We'll be looking into more group classes this summer! read more

My fiance and I took Laurie's 3-week group wedding dance class and are SO glad we did. Laurie is an amazing teacher -- she's encouraging, breaks down each step so that it's digestible for everyone, and creates a fun atmosphere. She knows exactly what each person needs and does a great job rotating around the room to spend time with every couple. My fiance was less than thrilled that we were taking dance lessons in the first place, but wound up LOVING it. He left each class saying "I can't believe how fun that was!" much to both of our surprise. We appreciated that it wasn't set choreography for one song, but we actually learned how to dance together and we acquired steps that we'll be able to use for any song. We still can't believe how affordable this class is and would highly recommend it to all couples! read more

Believe it or not dancing lessons are as amazing virtually as they are in person. Highly recommend Laurie for either one! She was super accommodating, thoughtful and overall great teacher. I was impressed at how easily I learned with her. read more

The most important wedding advice we got from a friend - take dance lessons. All eyes are on you. It's on the video. Don't look like a fool. So instead of just swaying back and forth, we called Laurie. We took private lessons with Laurie and Ricardo. The first lesson, I thought it was hopeless. We practiced what we were shown but felt like robots. We went for our second lesson and suddenly, the robotics turned into an actual dance! They were both so incredibly helpful and patient. We had so much fun learning! We were nervous on our big day, but once the music started and everyone cheered after our first spin, we felt like Fred and Ginger. Granted, on video, turns out we weren't, but weren't half bad. read more

I am absolutely in love with ballroom dancing, and it is all because of Laurie and Dance Connection: classes, free parties and cheap parties with live music and really cool people... Laurie is a top notch teacher, and really works with you to help you reach your potential, never impatient, and she has a great sense of humor and truly loves to dance and teach dance! I will be studying with her for a long time to come... I'd love to be one of those people that haunt the dance halls of America, dancing for as long as I can stand on my own two feet and beyond! Nitty Gritty: Laurie teaches combinations that you can mix and match when dancing out on the town. Her goal is for you to be a "working" dancer; someone who actually goes out and uses what you have learned to have fun! read more

I met Laurie more than 10 years ago, taking my first dancing lessons. I tried some other dance instructions afterward. Laurie is the best instructor ever. Laurie and her team teaches latin, ballroom, a variety of swing and other dance. Additionally she offers incredible wedding dance preparation classes. I experienced it first hand as I was married this summer. Because of her, I am so much in love with dancing, and now traveling from Astoria to Brooklyn to take her classes. Her teaching style is the most encouraging and effective, and her sense of humor is unbeatable. You really learn how to dance. It is so much fun! read more

Laurie is an amazing person / instructor. She has a following in her studios and there's people that have been dancing with her for tens of years. She is playful and makes learning dance fun. She's always happy to answer questions and makes new dancers feel welcome. She understands both people and dance so taking classes with her is very enjoyable. I'd highly recommend her to anyone. read more

You've seen that slogan on pizza boxes, "you've tried the rest now try the best." That's the case here. Laurie and her crew are tops. Warm, patient, skilled with a great personality. Many repeat attendees. It's like a family there. read more

We participated in Laurie's wedding's prep class, Friday night couples dance class, and a private lesson. Dancing didn't come easy to us at all. This was eased by how supportive and encouraging Laurie was. We finally took a private lesson the week before our wedding where she helped us nail down 90 seconds of choreography for our first dance. If you're terrified/do not like dancing, but know you gotta do it anyway--this is definitely a good environment to dip your toes in - Laurie's warmth will help make you enjoy it and feel confident enough to do what you got to do. read more

Don't be embarrassed or nervous during your first dance at your wedding! Take a lesson with Dance Connection and ease all your fears!! We started with some group lessons a few months before our wedding and then came back for a few private lessons with Laurie, as our date neared. Laurie listened to our music and helped us develop moves that would flow with the music but was unchoreographed. She is a great teacher and made us feel totally comfortable and confident on the dance floor. We will definitely be back to take classes from her in the future! I highly recommend Dance Connection to anyone who is thinking about taking dance classes to give Laurie a try... you will definitely be happy with the decision. read more

We loved working with Laurie for our wedding dance prep. Neither of us are dancers, and my now husband literally can't hear the beat, but somehow she managed to get us into decent shape in just 3 lessons- plus we had so much fun! She is patient and funny and highly skilled as an instructor, would definitely recommend. read more

This review is way overdue but Laurie is truly top notch. Besides being (obviously) a fantastic dancer and teacher, she's also silly, patient, and fun to work with. She's great at reading people's skill levels and also understanding what they're looking for. We started by taking a 3-week summer wedding workshop over a year before our wedding because it seemed fun and me, the bride, loved dancing and had taken lessons before at an Arthur Murray. My fabulous husband was terrified as any total newbie is, but I can tell you he absolutely fell in love with dance and Laurie is completely to blame. We ended up doing a second wedding workshop because it was just fun and the best date night idea. Then we randomly attended one or two group classes. In the midst of this we had moved from Brooklyn to Manhattan and still chose to traverse boroughs to meet with Laurie. She's that worth it. Then of course we took private lessons for our wedding dance and I feel that what she came up with was challenging and intricate and everything we could have asked for. She knew what we were looking for and she let her imagination run wild even whilst listening to ideas I had from watching Dancing with the Stars (which I feel would be total blasphemy and an unrealistic ask of any dance teacher). I could honestly go on and on about how great she is. If I didn't live in Harlem, she'd see me every week. Also CHEAPER than any manhattan studio and more personalized. You're not working with a company, but a human being who really cares about you and your goals. 5 stars. A+. Literally everything you're looking for in a wedding dance teacher. read more

Laurie and Ricardo are wonderful! My husband and I arrived at their studio with about two weeks to prepare for our wedding. Ricardo worked with us to develop two songs in just three lessons. He was warm, enthusiastic and absolutely brilliant! He took two complete novices and gave us manageable and fun routines. We absolutely loved our experience at this studio and are planning to come back for more lessons! read more

It has been nothing but wonderful to attend these classes. Instructors are knowledgeable and friendly, and are excellent teachers. Go!

Laurie, Jose Luis and Ricardo are wonderful teachers for beginners or more advanced dancers. I have studied with them for over a decade. They create a positive space where you are supported to learn and enjoy yourself even if you have "two left feet." The space is neither sexist, nor homophobic nor gender binary, and folks can comfortably dance as a leader or follower as they wish. Further, partners are rotated throughout each class session, which helps everyone learn better and build relationships. I wholeheartedly recommend Dance Connection! read more

Wallflower no more - look at me, I'm dancing! I've always considered myself awkward and uncoordinated, with more than my fair share of left feet. Laurie, Ricardo and Jose Luis have helped me to overcome shyness and reserve, and to find my inner dancer. Fast forward two years, and I find that I have enjoyed the journey immensely. Now I would say dancing is a great activity for everybody, and Dance Connection is a great place to learn. No excuses - get to Dance Connection and join the fun! read more

Dance Connection is a great dance studio! We choose the wedding preparation workshop, and then added three private lessons after. The wedding prep workshop is a must for anyone about to get married. We added the private lessons as we were working on a specific routine. Laurie really made our experience great. She was very accommodating, and so helpful throughout the entire process. She worked with us to develop a routine that matched the music, and fit our skill level. By the time the wedding arrived, we were both confident and excited for the first dance. I must admit, I entered the process begrudgingly, but was the one pushing for the extra private lessons in the end! Laurie made us feel like we were dancing in our living room with only a friend watching us. I'd recommend it to anyone! read more

Took my first dance class ever here, and it was an absolute blast. We'll be continuing to take swing dance lessons here for a long time! Laurie is a great teacher, as well read more

We took dance lessons for our wedding, and we had such a blast! Laurie is incredibly patient and easy-going, and on top of that she is a great teacher. We took 3 private lessons (which are reasonable) and a set of 3 lessons for wedding couples. The combination of lessons was perfect, and Laurie really breaks down the steps for you, and allows you to find your own way without being too critical. We had such a fun time during our lessons, and our guests were so impressed by our dance. We hope to continue dancing in BK! Thanks Laurie!! read more

Amazing! Laurie is sweetheart and an accomplished pro. She guided us from total amateurs to skilled hoofers on the dance floor, with only a few weeks to go before the wedding. Helped us navigate our first dance with a song that was a little untraditional, and all our guests were completely floored, asking us where we got the lessons. read more

Laurie at Dance Connection choreographed our first dance for our wedding and we had the best experience with her!!! We had gone to a few other dance studios first, but felt as though they wouldn't really listen to what we wanted for our first dance. We told Laurie our vision and she made it happen for us!! First, she taught us how to Foxtrot, and then used the many moves we learned to choreograph our dance. Our lessons were always fun and informative. Laurie is a great teacher. She made it easy to learn all the complicated steps. We felt very confident going into the wedding. The dance went great- we got SOOOO many compliments on our dance the rest of the weekend. Plus, we now know how to dance and can use that for the rest of our lives! That's the best thing about Laurie- she doesn't just teach you a routine. She teaches you how to DANCE. We plan to take more dance classes at Dance Connection. We also took a few lessons with Jose Luis and he was amazing as well!! read more