The Celebration Ballroom

Wiley really has a way of making you feel like part of his family. My fiancé and I came to Wiley for private lessons to help us with our first dance. Neither of us had any dance experience what-​so-​ever. Wiley was very patient with us, and his instruction was very clear. It’s absolutely amazing what our finished product was in just 6 weeks. Not only were we really able to rock our first dance (which brought our friends and family to tears) but he also made us fall in love with dance. We always left our sessions with a huge smile on our faces. It’s not just about learning to dance, it’s about coming together. Wiley was truly invested in our routine and it really paid off. We will definitely be signing up for classes at the Ballroom in the future. Thanks again Wiley. You made us shine!

Wiley is awesome. My guy and I took lessons to prepare for a New Year’s Eve dance. Wiley was super patient with us (no dance background at all) and adapted his teaching to our needs. I rarely rate anything 5 stars, but Wiley deserves them all. By the way, our tablemates at the New Year’s Eve dance told us that the lessons were worth every $$.

The best dance instruction I have received to date. I’m from out of town and will look for excuses to get to LA as often as I can to take more lessons.

What a great way to spend an evening.
Great teacher Wylie is also funny and a good all around guy as he teaches you with great looking women to learn some dancing techniques.

What an amazing experience! If you have a love for dance, this is the place to go! The instruction is suitable for all ages and designed for beginners to competitive dancing. Coming from the age of social media I was vigilant to find an instructor that was versatile and has the experience to teach many different dancing styles at a pace designed for each individual. In addition to several venues for my convenience, flexible scheduling and competitive pricing, my search was a success! As I continue to grow I couldn’t be more thrilled!

Wiley really knows how to make dancing fun. As he so often puts it, «If you make a mistake, so what?» The Celebration Ballroom is a fantastic place to learn all you would need to know to get out there on any dance floor and have a blast. Check it out, meet some wonderful people, get your groove on, and become more than you ever imagined possible. Be it Swing, Waltz, Tango, Foxtrot, Rumba, Cha-​Cha, Samba, etc… this is a great place to go and learn it all. Wiley is not just a teacher and overall mentor, but is somebody with a genuine passion for helping others reach their full potential, on and off the dance floor.

Wiley is the greatest! He is very patient and makes all of the participants comfortable. We love how he doesn’t mind breaking the steps into bite size pieces so that we can pick up some difficult combinations. He starts with the basics and then kicks it up a notch. When we leave a class, we always come away feeling very productive, and the most important thing was that we had a great time!

This is such a warm and inviting place to hang out. Learning to dance can be awkward, but both the instructors (awesome!) and the fellow students are super supportive. Smaller class sizes make learning easier, and the dance room itself is quite nice. It’s a bit tucked away off the street, but parking is plentiful and well lit. When I took swing lessons there, Roscoe showed us old Fred Astaire dance films before class which was so cool for inspiration. Finally, you can’t beat the pay-​as-​you-​go prices. A very reasonable $ 9-​$ 15 I believe.

The Celebration Ballroom is the solution to a long running problem in the West Valley: a lack of dance halls routinely open to members of the public seeking to learn and practice formal styles of social dance. Before this place opened your only local alternative was Arthur Murray in the Promenade mall, but that meant dropping hundreds of dollars at a time on multiweek packages of one-​on-​one dance lessons. Celebration Ballroom started out as a Meetup group called the West Coast Coolsters and developed such a following that its organizer, Wiley Simpson, signed a lease on the space he had been renting for the class meetings.
Inconspicuous, so be prepared to miss it at least once driving by. Having been to two of the classes, one open dance night, and one special event I can say that what the dance hall lacks in location and décor it more than makes up for in the intangibles. Wiley Simpson, the emcee and head instructor, didn’t mince words when he observed the men moving too timidly with their partners. He holds participants to high standards, but he’s quite accommodating to physical limitations and critiques his charges with a brash sense of humor. He teaches all ballroom styles: both East and West Coast swing, lindyhop, salsa, rumba, country two-​step, waltz, foxtrot, even tango. Simpson’s connections from his long history in competitive ballroom dancing have enabled him to book several high profile guest instructors including former DWTS pro Elena Grinenko.
This is primarily a learning environment, so if you’re trolling for hookups you’d better take your peacock moves elsewhere. The crowd here is representative of the area, mostly thirty to fifty something singles and couples. Classes meet from 7 – 10 PM Sundays through Thursdays, sometimes followed by open floor dance. They haven’t had hosted a live band yet but there’s sufficient room to make that a possibility.
It’s still the home of West Coast Coolsters, which you can find by searching dance on
. What I like most is that Celebration Ballroom charges by the session rather than subscriptions or prepayment. That gives me a lot of flexibility to my schedule and budget. A lot of others seem to like this place because this joint is jumping!