If you get a chance to stumble upon this boutique studio, try the Mind & Body stretching class with Stefaniya. Why? Let me share a little story of my day today. :O) I went to the local park, a block away from where I live, this Sunday morning to do some simple exercises. Even though it was 38 degrees, it did not feel as cold as I thought it would be so I was in my shorts and tank top. As I did my Shaolin soft fist qi gong, I discovered that I was surprisingly balanced and stable with my movement, especially transitioning between forms on one leg. I was all the more surprised because I had not been going to the park nor doing these exercises for a while. The only exercise I have been doing regularly is the stretching class at Brooklyn Dance Lessons. I have been going to the class for exactly a year but only now do I realize how much it has helped me. Hence, I am writing this review. Stefaniya's stretching class focuses on stretching but also strengthening various parts of your body. Her warm ups go through every part of your body, even your toes. Ha! Stefaniya's words of guidance throughout the class of what to focus on also adds more depth to the actions; I have discovered myself improving in balance and posture while building strength and flexibility. After the warm ups, it changes from class to class what we will do so the classes are never repetitive and boring. Then at the end, as we lie on the yoga mats for a cool down, Stefaniya provides a very soothing voice to bring the mind to rest alongside the body. Her soft voice throughout that part of the class encourages you to be more introspective and find your own inner peace as she offers forth various questions of existence and self. You wake up at the end feeling mentally and physically relaxed. Well, that is my experience of the class so I hope you find it useful if you are considering the various classes at the studio. read more

I always wanted to do the routine from the final scene in the movie Dirty Dancing for my first dance at my wedding. I knew this would be a difficulty dance to learn so we started taking lessons in January for our wedding in August with a different instructor at a different dance studio. When I told them what we wanted to do they told me they've taught this dance many times and assured me they could teach it. On our first lesson they asked me if we didn't mind changing it slightly. I knew some of the moves looked really difficult so I didn't mind changing it a little, but wanted it to be as much like the movie as possible. So they taught us a few moves like in the movie, but after awhile we realized most of what they were teaching us was a completely different dance. We decided to find another instructor that would teach us what we really wanted to learn. That's when we found Olga at Brooklyn Dance Lessons. She taught us EXACTLY the dance from the movie, with only changing the final lift at the end (I knew that would be too difficulty to learn). We had so much fun learning the dance with Olga. She knew the dance well and was dedicated to teaching it to us just how they did it in the movie. She even spent hours of her own time outside of our lessons watching youtubes of the dance in the movie to make sure we were doing it just right. She took notes after each lesson to remember what we learned and she had a plan for what we will learn each lesson. She seemed like she truly enjoyed teaching us this dance. At the wedding the dance turned out amazing! our guests couldn't stop raving about it. It was the highlight of the wedding! The only thing I regret is not starting with Olga sooner and wasting time with that other dance studio. I highly recommend Brooklyn Dance Lessons for learning your first wedding dance. It was such a fun experience. read more

Olga is an amazing dance teacher! My husband and I are both inexperienced dancers and definitely needed a lot of guidance. This was especially so since I wanted to dance to both the original version and bachata version of Stand by Me. We were skeptical what we could achieve in only two weeks and came out impressed and excited about or first dance. In that short amount of time, we learned multiple dance styles (fox trot, rumba, and bachata) and nailed down a choreographed first dance by Olga. We received many compliments after the wedding about the dance and definitely glad we decided to do lessons. We highly recommend Brooklyn Dance Lessons! At the first lesson, Olga focused on the basics so that we can start understanding fundamentals such as posture, leading and beats per the dance style. Each lesson she built up from the previous with more and more complex moves. Finally she effortlessly choreographed our dance based on what we were comfortable with and moves that we loved to do. Olga was very patient, fun and thoughtful. We looked forward to each class because we knew we were going to have a good time. Olga also has a very keen ear and eye. She can spot a misstep from a mile away. Suggestion to all future students, definitely practice at home! You learn so much at each class that practice makes the next one so much more fun and productive. read more

We had an all out amazing experience with Brooklyn Dance Lessons. Our first dance team, Olga and Amanda, worked with us to choreograph a dance that was to our style and ability. We took a group lesson (every Tuesday), which was super fun and then signed up for private lessons. We have friends who hated their dance lessons at other studios -- for us it was the ultimate stress relief. Whenever we hit a bump with wedding planning -- dance lesson. Whenever something went awry with family -- dance lesson. Olga and Amanda made it so much fun to plan for our first dance. We found ourselves dancing in the park, going over our moves on the subway... in short it was the greatest joy leading up to our wedding. We'd taken lessons with another studio before and didn't have the same experience to say the least. We truly believe that we are better dancers because of Amanda and Olga -- they found ways to work with our strengths and day of we were confident and smiling. They made us look our best and we even impressed a friend or two or three. If there were 1,000 stars it wouldn't be enough! read more

My husband and I chose Brooklyn Dance Lessons to learn a few dance moves for our first dance at our wedding. Neither of us had any rhythm or knew how to dance. Olga was wonderful to work with. She called us before we scheduled our first lesson to discuss our experience, hopes, and goals. I had a very tricky schedule to work with but Olga was extremely accommodating. We started lessons 5 weeks before our big day and were only able to squeeze in 5 lessons (I definitely recommend taking more than 5 lessons or at least starting well before 5 weeks before your big day) but were able to learn the fox trot and various dance moves to spice up our first dance. Olga and her team were very patient with us and our lack of rhythm and coordination. Our lessons were informative, fun, and even sweat inducing! I highly recommend Brooklyn Dance Lessons. You will not be disappointed! read more

My husband and I reached out to Olga when we were getting ready for our first dance at our wedding. She is an amazing teacher who put as at ease right away (my husband was very skeptical at first) and made learning to dance effortless and fun. We liked her so much that we decided to keep dancing with her and are still taking weekly lessons 2 years later at the amazing studio. We are learning salsa, which was totally out of our comfort zones at first but now I couldn't imagine not having our dance lesson to look forward to and Olga has become a great friend. She is so supportive and is always thinking of new routines for us and new places and events for us to go to to practice. I highly, highly recommend booking BK Dance Lessons for your wedding or just for fun - it is an incredible experience and such a wonderful skill to know how to dance!! A++++++++++ read more

My wife and I really enjoyed our time with Brooklyn Dance Lessons and with our instructor Alina. We had never taken any type of dance lessons in the past and she did a great job at teaching us basics that we could build upon and gave us the confidence to take on our big day! We did the "Look We Can Move" Package with 5 Hours that were scheduled over a 6/7 week period. The studio is in Gowanus, just a few blocks from Subway and is in a nice new building with an elevator that opens right up into the space. We enjoyed it so much that we extended the package an additional 2 Hours which gave us time to add some moves to the routine. Would highly recommend and look forward to going back to learn something new. read more

We had a wonderful experience learning our first dance with Olga at Brooklyn Dance Lessons. My husband and I have little experience dancing and ideally, we would've taken 10 classes, but we were short on time so we ended up taking 6 classes. Olga is very patient and clearly explains and demonstrates all dance steps. She is incredibly knowledgeable and the dance she created was creative and fun; a combination of rumba and bachata. We were incredibly pleased with our performance and impressed our guests! Lastly, we appreciated Olga's flexibility scheduling our classes, as two of our classes were not on the same day we were taking the classes. Thank you! read more

My partner and I went to a group class with Olga last week, she was very welcoming and professional. She had a large group, but we all got individual attention and learned a lot in a short amount of time. My partner hasn't done social or ballroom dance that much before and this class made him feel right at home and like he could accomplish the steps. I would certainly recommend Olga's class to anyone from beginners to advanced dancers. This class would be a great idea for a date night and we will definitely be going back! read more

Olga has been a fantastic dance teacher! Exactly the kind of approach I was looking for! Before starting to dance she explained details about steps and music (making it easier to understand the rhythm and the different types of dances) and she answered all my questions. She has been very patient with me. I have learnt basic steps and more complicated ones, and now when I am definitely more confident when I dance, keeping in mind her rule #1: have fun and smile! read more

Really great dance studio! It's a nice space and Olga is a wonderful teacher. We initially booked Olga to help us with our first dance at our wedding, but the experience was so great that we decided to book salsa lessons when we got back from our honeymoon. I am not a natural dancer at all, but Olga is a very patient teacher and helped me a lot. I would highly recommend going with Brooklyn Dance Lessons! read more

I always wanted to learn a dance but I've never had the courage to step in one of those fancy schools advertised on newspapers because they always looked fake to me. I had the chance to see Olga of Brooklyn Dance Lessons in action and had a totally different feeling. I decided to give them the hard job to teach me Rumba for my wedding. Best decision ever! read more

have been taking lessons with olga for about 3 months and have gone from being afraid to comfortable on the dance floor. olga is patient and intuitive to your skill level and ability. looking forward to my next class! read more