Fred Astaire Dance Studios

My husband and I have been dancing at this studio since moving to the city 16 years ago. We dance together as amateurs and also in pro-​am competitions and showcases with Darius and Jolanta. The level of instruction is as good as it gets. And so are the people who come for lessons and practice parties and become great friends. Something wonderful the way this studio manages to keep us learning and keeps it fun.

My wife and I came to the studio about 6 years ago to learn a wedding dance and we’re still there. What a fabulous group of people at the studio. We really look forward to our lessons. My instructor Olga is so infinitely patient with my two left feet and me. Always trying new and different ways to get me to lead my wife correctly. There is so much to learn and Olga makes it so enjoyable, we keep going back for more. It’s so wonderful to be able to dance with my wife. Thanks to everyone at the West Side studio.

I decided to take dance lessons because I have two left feet and could never dance at parties. This studio is by far the best in the city and all of the instructors are knowledgeable. They are not pushy and do a good job teaching you anything you want to know. I would highly recommend this studio and all of the instructors to anyone who wants to learn how to dance!

The worst! I went here to learn a wedding dance with my fiancé. They only do private lessons. The first instructor, Jackie, did a terrible job of listening to anything we asked for or had to say. For instance, we knew we wanted to learn a Foxtrot, and she demanded that we also learn two other types of dance. At the rate we were paying, you’d think we could learn what we wanted. Anyway, in the end there was enough conflict with her that we had to switch to a new instructor.
The second instructor, Andre, didn’t understand English very well, which made learning difficult. Overall, we just didn’t learn very much from him in any of the sessions, despite practicing diligently in between. But the biggest issue? We gave him measurements of the space in which we were doing the dance. Rather than actually measuring the space and choreographing a dance that would work in the space, he paced it off roughly. Then he put together a dance that needed more floor space than we had. I even raised the issue, and he dismissed it. So we spent months learning a dance that we couldn’t perform in the space. With just a couple weeks left, we went to rehearse and discovered the problem. We were out of lessons, so we just had to do our best to re-​work the dance for the space.
We spent a huge amount of money on a bunch of lessons. Overall, it was a terrible experience. I had very little experience with ballroom before this, and my wife had none at the time. The experience was so bad that my wife will almost certainly never do ballroom dance for the rest of her life. Do NOT go here if you’re a beginner. Do NOT go here to learn a wedding dance.

A favorite, Tim and all the instructors there are helpful & enthusiastic — great place to learn and advance your dancing. A staple.

My fiancé and I have really enjoyed taking lessons with Maladdin. He’s really good at explaining what changes we should make, and he totally choreographed a first-​dance song for us.
What’s a bit difficult about this place is that often there are other people dancing — with their own music. For example, in our last hour-​long lesson, we only heard «our» song once. This happens in «private» lessons. I would say this is the biggest drawback to this studio.
Otherwise, it has been really fun working with Maladdin, and we look forward to dancing in front of our friends and family.

We purchased the Groupon (2 private 30-​minute lessons + a dance party — which is the same as the $ 75 intro package) for the Midtown East location. Both my boyfriend and I have previous dance experience, and we wanted to refresh our memories and learn something new. The instructors were good, although we got kind of bored in the middle of each lesson because of the constant repetition. We’d do the same steps over and over again for 10 minutes, even though we had them down. Since I only had 2 classes, I wanted to learn as much as possible. Somehow, part of me felt like the instructors were purposefully slowing down so that we would keep taking more lessons.
They are way too pushy here about more lessons. Every time I talked to the owner, he kept asking if we wanted to do the additional dance package, what we thought of more lessons, and the instructors are also programmed to bring us to him to get the additional lessons. I understand using Groupon and the intro sessions as lead generation, but the constant asking is a major, major turnoff. I don’t like salesmen following me at a department store; I definitely dislike the same pressure during a dance lesson.

I would try other places. They lure you in with the $ 75 intro fee then immediately push you into a big package $ 500+. Each session ends early and they are constantly upselling. Just not the fun/​value experience we were seeking.
Also, out of no where they start discussing «progress checks». It’s fine if you want to compete on DWTS, but for people looking to learn a few moves, it’s a bit much…

Lessons are pretty good. You learn a lot in a lesson (1 hour long) so if you’re learning for a particular event, you don’t really need the packages which start at 5 lessons.

We took one lesson before our wedding and while the lesson was good, the constant selling of future lessons annoyed us.