San Juan Dance

Nice and small class instruction in ballet or tap for your little one or not so little one. A great blend of fun and dance fundamentals taught at age an appropriate pace. Suzanne and Ms. Jordan and all the assistant instructors are great with the kids!

My daughter enjoys her class well enough. The customer service is terrible! Could not get anyone to help me enroll my daughter but was hounded for a $ 15 late fee for being 48 hours late on costume payment.

Great for little kids but the class sizes are way to high and there are new people admitted throughout the year that slows down the class. We loved Claire Suttle and her little helpers but the teacher for the 7 – 8 classes was very uninspiring and my daughter then quit. We have since moved onto a different location which is a shame since we do adore Ms. San Juan and Suzanne San Juan.

I started dancing at the San Juan School of Dance when I was 2 ½ years old, and continued for 9 more years until I started junior high. In many ways, I grew up at the SJ School: I remember the twice a week lessons, with Mrs. San Juan simultaneously playing the piano while also watching and coaching us; I remember the Goodship Lollipop costume, the yearly RAD exams, the indulgence of occasionally stopping at Baskin Robbins for Gold Medal Ribbon ice cream after class.
I am 32 now, and haven’t formally danced since I put away my purple ballet bag. Yet, I can trace so much of who I am now to the lessons I learned at the SJ School. You can breathe better when you are smiling. Focus. Work hard and your efforts will pay off. Do your best. Concentrate.
I walk with confidence, balance in almost any situation, and hold my head high, all thanks to Mrs. San Juan.

This is a nice place to go for learning how to dance, as a beginner. I took classes and a camp here and it was fun, but it wasn’t very «professional». They hire teens and Mrs. San Juan and Mrs. Suzanne (the daughter of Mrs. San Juan) run the dance studio. They are group lessons unless you are able to join the «San Juan Sensations» which are kids that take all the classes, and do competitions for the San Juan School of Dance.

As a Mom, I really appreciate the one outstanding feature of the San Juan’s weekend childrens classes: all the teens who help teach! For instance, in a class of 15 three year olds, there will be the main teacher as well as 3 — 4 more teen helpers in the class who get down and show the little ones how to do the moves. It’s a wonderful teaching model. Once the kids are 4, they also get to part of the annual show in June. San Juan School also offers fun adult classes for all ability levels from ex-​hard-​core-​dancers to rank beginners. Studio in Los Altos was recently remodeled and is a nice space. For teens seeking advanced professional training — other studios are probably better, but this place is a standout for it’s very well-​executed core programs focusing on all levels of skill and interest.

I attended this studio for 13 years and took Jazz, Tap, Ballet, and Pointe, and taught Tap and Ballet.
This studio is split into two sections, in my opinion: the Ballet part and everything else. For ballet, the school follows the Royal Academy of Dance syllabus, which has a very strong emphasis placed on technique through repetition. Class hours tend to be shorter than other studios, but the upper classes are very small (4 — 6 students) and VERY rigorous, with classes held at night with flexible hours, based on how much work the students feel they need to put in (classes often run long). Pointe students generally are not started until they reaach ten years of age, and the classes are much gentler and slower than at many other studios
In terms of Other classes, the best are jazz and tap, with new classes in Hip Hop, Musical Theatre, lyrical, and others developing. There is a kind of general canon of steps taught in the jazz and tap classes, until the upper classes, in which choreography, improvisation, and performance are the focus.
this is a Family Studio, with classes for babies, kids, teens, and parents/​grandparents. The studio does have a dance team, but overall, this is not a competitive studio; it is good at accomodating people who aren’t necessarily the best dancers or the most driven workers. If you are serious about dancing, stick around for the Advanced Ballet classes or go somewhere else. If you’re a beginner, this is a good place to get into RAD syllabus (the closest other RAD studio is in Half Moon Bay) for the technique, then move to another ballet school for other aspects of dance.