East West Music and Dance

When I was growing up, my sister was in competitive dance classes which meant a good portion of my life was miserable being dragged from competition to competition for ten hours to watch three minutes of my sister. Thank god for GameBoy.
Imagine my consternation when my daughter began to ask about dance classes. Thankfully we found East West Dance.
Our little one has been in the 4 – 5 and 5 – 6 year old ballet as well as ballet/​tap combo. The focus of these programs is on learning the core basics, not on forcing kids to travel across the state for competitions (I’m sure this occurs at the older level but we’ve received no pressure at her age level). This is great for kids who want to go to dance once a week, and also participate in other non-​dance activities.
We have also found the billing to be ridiculously easy and the rates equally ridiculously fair.
I strongly recommend East West Dance, Ms. Pam and Zooey.

Worst experience ever! I signed up my 5 year old daughter for a trial ballet/​tap lesson, turns out that she was sitting on a chair the whole hour. She had Ms Emily as the teacher… I saw very little effort from Ms Emily trying to engage her in the class. Environment did not seem welcoming, teacher did not smile once and did not show any passion from what I could see. This is supposed to be a class for 4 – 6 year old kids, Ms Emily for sure is not trained to work with kids in that age group. She probably just asked my daughter a couple times during the class if she wanted to join, and then just turned away.
After the class ended and the kids were dismissed, my daughter was still sitting on the chair alone. Even Ms Emily came out already… she obviously had either forgotten about her or she did not even ask her to come out to the room with other kids. There was only 5 – 6 kids in the class, wasn’t even a big group which she could not handle. How hard is it to hold a child’s hands to bring her out of the room?! She did not initiate a conversation with us after class either, when I went into the classroom to look for my daughter, my husband had to go up to her to ask her on how my daughter did. All she said was «at least she wasn’t crying»…then when my husband asked if a trial lesson is supposed to have the kid sit all lesson long, she said no and stayed silent.
Well, I’m glad that we had this so called «trial lesson»…I got my money back and now we know we will never come back to this studio. And yes, they charge $ 24 for a trial lesson. I would have no problem paying that $ 24 if the teacher is professional; unfortunately, that’s not the case.

I researched more than a dozen dance studios in the area and visited half dozen myself before settling in at this gem for my then 3.5 years old daughter to start dancing lessons. I love dancing myself and I am a picky mom, like many moms. I am very glad I found this place and Ms. Pam, so is my daughter.
Like many girls, my daughter loved dancing ever since she was very little, but had a terrible experience when we had a trial at another dance studio. So when she first started at this studio, she had lots of fear for dance classes. Ms. Pam was very patient, she allowed my daughter to watch for as long as she needed. We deeply appreciate that Ms. Pam went out of her way to work with us and gave my daughter as much time as she needed to be comfortable in the class. Ms. Pam’s class is filled with fun and love. Gradually, my daughter is into dance again. She actually fell into love with Ms. Pam’s class and looks forward to her dance class every week. Thank you, Ms. Pam.
All the staff members there are also very helpful and friendly. I would highly recommend this warm place for kids dancing classes.

Very unprofessional. My daughter was going there for violin class. They abruptly stopped the class saying that they were not happy with the violin teacher and discontinued the teacher. It has bee almost more than 10 weeks and they haven’t contacted us to find a new teacher. The most unethical (or make be mistake) part is they charged my credit card two times even after the suspension of the class. I hope they would return me back all the money including the registration fee as the class was discontinued because of East West Music and Dance.

I have been dancing (ballet, jazz, tap) here since I was 4 years old and nothing beats this studio! Participating in the performing groups was one of the best experiences of my life. The discipline, creativity and friends you make are beyond words. Many beautiful dancers have come out of this studio and a lot of them come back to become teachers as well!
Every year there is some sort of showcase, either a big show with full on costumes, staging and lights; or a demonstration in the studio. Either way, you get to show off all the dances you’ve been working on to your friends and family. It provides that performance high that dancers crave and is always tons of fun!
The teachers and staff truly love dance and just want to share it with all the dancers out there! The studio has really expanded over the years to include hip hop, contemporary and much more! Both females and males are always welcome!
I would recommend this studio if you’re a beginner, an old dancer dusting off those shoes or just need a great workout without joining a gym!

My daughter has been dancing at East West Music and Dance since she was about to turn 7. She started with 1 class in the beginning and now she has 10 dance classes of different genres (ballet, jazz, contemporary, modern/​lyrical, tap, hip hop, etc.) in addition to dance company classes where she performs in malls, festivals, and competition like DMA and NYCDA. She also takes dance (VPA) in High School. Among her peers (mainly freshman to Juniors) are those who have never taken dance and have dance as long as she has at other studios. I am not trying to show off or exaggerate but using it as a way to compare, the long time dancers at her high school have trouble doing a double pirouette while my daughter can do triple and quadruple ones because of her training at EWMD. I personally feel that this studio has been a very positive influence on her and she has gained lots of confidence as a person because of it. Other than high school, she spends about 16 hours a week at EWMD and enjoys every minute of it. As you can imagine, the rest of the time, she is doing homework and studying, sometimes in between dance classes. She is a teenager but she doesn’t have time like other kids to get into «teenage situations».
The director and teachers have been outstanding and they have been very positive and nurturing. My impression is that this studio is all about encouragement not discouragement. At her age, encouragement is a good motivator and confidence builder. I also like the fact that some teachers are members of a local dance company, some are local school teachers, and there are long time teacher of dance. They bring different experiences that my daughter has an appreciation for. In fact, one of her teachers recently won the «2012 Spirit of Dance Award» given to a SF/​Bay Area dancer. Finally, I feel that the environment of the studio is important. The students dancing in the studio are great kids. You can tell they are all having fun and not stressed out. I am really happy with how some older kids provide by example how to act and behave as well as being great mentors to my daughter. Even after leaving for college, some former dancers come back during school breaks to visit or take classes at the studio. That’s awesome because my daughter can learn from them what comes next in her life.

This was my first jazz (I also took tap) dance studio, and I gave it a 3 because I only want my review to strengthen their business. First, I recommend they challenge their students more. When I was in the class, the teachers always said «Great job» and «Good», but they never even gave constructive criticism. None of their students are really advanced, and choreography is kind of bad and consists only of running in circles. I realize this is just a recreational studio, but once I left and went to another studio, I realized how bad I was. They do not teach proper technique and don’t point out the obvious things like to point your toes, engage your abs, or turn out. Anyone who tries out for a high school dance team will not make it in because of lack of proper training. It’s pretty sad, and I feel bad for any students who are still there. Throughout my couple of years there, none of the students (including me) really immensely improved. In jazz class, I didn’t break a sweat and we didn’t do much. The staff is nice though (except this one lady at the front desk that one time) and the performances are more exciting but is relied mostly on props, lighting, and shiny costumes rather than talent. The teachers don’t have that much impressive credentials and experience. Yikes, but I really hope they improve from this critique because it’s not a completely bad studio. But facilities are nice… :)

My baby and I attend The Music Class (Mommy & Me) with Jinifer. We just love it! At 8 months old, I didn’t expect much, but Munchkin has really made lots of progress. He enjoys playing with all of the different instruments and crawling around the studio floor. He even knows where the instruments are stored, and crawls over to retrieve them.
We especially love Jinifer; she has taught my son to bang on the drum, shake maracas, wave scarves, and move with the beat! It’s clear that she really enjoys teaching music and being silly with children.
I have already recommended The Music Class to some friends!

Amber East is such a wonderful teacher. I really, really appreciated her approach to both the spiritual and the physical aspects of yoga. Amber was attentive and encouraging, and given that I’m a beginner, she really took the anxiety out of the whole experience for me. Truth be told, Amber’s pretty fantastic to look at too, which definitely made the hour-​long workout more enjoyable! I would recommend Amber and her studio to anyone interested in physical and mental health.

I just went to the best Yoga class with Amber East!
I feel great!
ready for anything…
She really paid attention to exactly where I needed attention.
Breath… Ohm…

My daughter has been attending this studio for four years now, since she was 5. Great choice of classes, teachers are first-​class, they have every other year dance productions that are really top-​notch. MY daughter has been taking ballet, tap and jazz/​hip-​hop and I can see progress every time I attend the observation class.