My 16 year old son visited from NY for their summer jazz intensive, and it was the most incredible…read moreexperience for him! He was challenged with working with the best choreographers, and can't stop talking about it. He really felt like he was part of a family after the first day! He's already looking forward to next summer!!

My girls (now 8 and 4) absolutely LOVE dancing at Gus! They both started a little over a year ago…read moreand have learned so much and have so much fun in class. They like to have their own dance classes at home where they put on their shoes and practice what they learned in class with each other. My older daughter is now a company dancer and is there twice a week. The teachers are wonderful with the little kids and keeping their attention, which I just got to see first hand during parent observation week. I also like that Gus gives back to the community and puts on so many free performances for families and other members of the community throughout the year. They are family owned which you can truly feel in all aspects of their interactions and communication with the children and parents. Highly recommend!

Our 4 y/o daughter started taking classes at Volta a couple of months ago and has been loving it so…read morefar. Ms. Dee and Ms. Jade are extremely professional, dedicated, flexible and wonderful with kids. T heir focus on creating a community and making dance accessible for all children in the area is genuine. For example, they didn't insist on my daughter coming with ballet clothes and shoes, which are costly. I highly recommend this studio!!

Mx Dee is the greatest! My kiddo went there for ballet and hip hop and loved every moment of it…read more We're a Goethe Elementary family and the love for Volta is huge at our school. Their pajama nights are awesome as well - enough time for the parents to grab dinner on their own. So happy to have this in our neighborhood!

It's a great spot to learn dance. There's a main open large room for the bigger classes, and a…read morefew side rooms for smaller classes as well. There's 1 right across from the entrance, 3 in a hallway offset from the main open room, and then 1 more in the back, past the hallway and across from the bathrooms. As I was attending this venue as a rented space for a Brazilian Zouk weekender event, I didn't interact with any of the Dance Center Chicago staff-- but they have a great space!

I am not a dancer, never learned then kinda gave up on the idea, destined to be a wall flower or…read morethat guy dancing like Elaine. With a wedding on the horizon my father thought a nice gift would be a 4 week Wedding Prep group lesson for the lady, who can dance, and me. We learned a fun first dance routine, including a dip at the end, and had a gas. We laughed so hard during our lessons and first dance. I am not Fred Astaire by any means now but thanks to Alisa, our instructor, I now have some moves and confidence that will let me enjoy time on the dance floor. Thanks!

We've enjoyed a number of performances over the years- I ask for HSD tickets for my birthday every…read moreyear- and we always have a blast. Every time! The choreography is so innovative and the dancers are incredibly strong, each with breathtaking range and immense depth of expression. A night at the Harris Theatre watching Hubbard Street dancers perform followed by dinner at nearby Acanto is my absolute favorite thing to do in Chicago!!

I love this place. It's great for adults, whether or not you have prior dance experience…read more Signing up for class is really easy, especially your first time. Just arrive early and sign up & pay with the person at the front desk. I've been to the Intermediate Modern and the Beginning Hip-Hop classes. In both, people are very accepting -- I have not gotten any judgmental vibes from other dancers, which is awesome! (Because growing up in the dance world, competition is all around you.) I have been driving here form the northern suburbs, and there is free street parking in the evenings. Just read the street signs & you should be fine!

I love this studio! The instructors spend time with each student during the class ensuring everyone…read morecontinues to excel. I've made many friends here as well. I appreciate the positive fun atmosphere.

This is a special place. Every instructor is talented & welcoming. If I had more time, I would be…read morehere almost every day. Big shout out to Jorge Alvarez who teaches super fun cha cha, salsa & shines classes that I look forward to every week!!

My daughter just completed her first ballet class with Extensions Dance Company. It was wonderful…read more She learned a lot and was inspired to learn and grow in dance. The company did a wonderful job transitioning to online courses during the pandemic. They even pulled off an amazing Zoom recital that our families could enjoy.

This is an amazing place. My daughter has been taking classes here for three years and is part of…read moretheir Company. The founders have created an incredible community that is compassionate, supportive, and warm yet rigorous and demanding. The kids and parents are all well grounded. This is not your typical "Dance Mom's" place. The environment is fun and approachable yet serous dance happens here.

I took a salsa class here with a friend & we loved it! It was a small group, but the perfect amount…read morefor the group and combo work we did throughout the hour. The instructor was so helpful throughout the class, and kept those good vibes going! I thoroughly enjoyed the pace of the class, and appreciated the amazing fellow students who were our leads throughout class - an incredible experience & workout - we will be back!

Super energetic instructor for the Hip Hop Choreo class I took, love that different levels can…read moreparticipate, intimate group setting, felt so comfortable. Learned new steps!

Super posh dance center. Came for a 90's/00's dance class with Dre. It was a high energy but low…read morepressure class. I really enjoyed the class and the studio that the class was held in. Our class was in studio #5. The sound system was good. Unsure if I loved the floors, but they worked good for this class. Ample spacing for our class which had nearly 2 dozen participants. The space it self is really comprehensive. I saw multiple bathrooms and a gender-neutral bathroom. There is at least 5 separate dance spaces. Each space was arranged depending on dance style. I saw a room with several barre. The general area also boosted several areas to just chill while waiting on a loved to finish a class. On this day...all the kiddos were taking classes. So many little one excited to take their dance classes. It was cute because this little girl kep staring at our class through the window. Highly recommend seeing all the offerings at this dance center. I was surprised by the many offerings they have. I want to try a beginner hip-hop but we will see. Tip: Parking is located around the building on street. Mostly free but get there with time to look. I found it easier to just park off Belmont and walk.

Came for beginner/intermediate ballet with Brian! It was super challenging, but definitely more…read moretechnical for beginners so wouldn't recommend for first timers. Beautiful studio

My now-husband and I used Chicago Dance for choreography for our first dance at our wedding. We met…read morewith Sam for our consultation and talked her through our experience level (limited), some constraints (my husband is deaf with cochlear implants), and our expectations for what we wanted to get out of the sessions. While Sam had her work cut out for her with us, she never let her cards show and was 100% patient and kind throughout ever lesson. We ended up purchasing 8 sessions leading up to the wedding and we HIGHLY recommend Chicago Dance and Sam, specifically! The options are endless: whether you want to just learn some different dance types and be able to use those lessons to freestyle or if you want 100% choreography... Chicago Dance is the way to go. A couple highlights. 1. Sam was energetic and excited to try all kinds of new steps / tricks and she made us willing participants. She also valued our feedback and ensured that we were confident in what we were doing. She incorporated more of the steps/moves we enjoyed and flexed if we were not comfortable with anything. We laughed a lot playing around with new successful and totally unsuccessful attempts at tricks. Given our experience level, I was so impressed with her ability to articulate feedback and say the right things to make anything "complicated" seem simple and feasible! 2. We started looking forward to our dance lessons. Considering this was still in the middle of COVID, aside from dinner dates, we had not really done much in the way of date nights. We ended up loving our lessons and looking forward to these "date nights" as we were having so much fun and felt like it was driving more connection. 3. We were torn about which song to dance to. For the first two lessons, we ended up learning waltz basics and started learning choreography to one song. We were practicing at home one day and decided to try with a different song, and fell in love. Sam quickly jumped into action helping us play with the different types of dance we can incorporate into the new song. She cut the music based on my suggestions seamlessly. No joke - she provided full service.

Great instructors. Welcoming and inclusive environment. Good variety of dance types. We took…read moreclasses for our wedding first dance and it was a very good experience. The space is clean with good mirrors and floors, and separate rooms so several classes can meet at the same time. Close to the CTA brown line as well! No free parking nearby but there is metered parking and a paid parking lot nearby.

Even though I knew this Nutcracker ballet version had been revised to occur in the 1930s Chicago…read moreworld fair, I was unprepared for the lack of fantasy and beauty and elegance that is central to the theme of Nutcracker. The entire set was cheap card tables and chipped furniture, a nutcracker doll that was barely visible and with little explanation as to why it changed hands among the performers- who danced in raggedy clothing, maybe one actual tutu for five minutes(?). There was very little actual ballet that I could ascertain, leaving me with impression that a lot of the performers were on holiday. It's really unfortunate that something so beautiful could be made into a somewhat depressing and largely incoherent show. So many people who come to see this I'm sure would normally be inspired to come back for a different show, but this performance so much missed the mark for what should be an upbeat holiday, I'm not inclined to take the risk

We saw Midsummer Night's Dream by the Joffrey Ballet at the Lyric Opera and, no, this is not a…read moreversion of the William Shakespeare play, but choreographed by Alexander Ekman. We also saw this when it premiered in 2018. It is a celebration of the summer solstice and Scandinavian traditions. In my opinion it is a mashup of Midsommar and Cirque du Soleil if you substitute the acrobats and contortionists with dancers and Swedish elders being pushed off a cliff with lifelike mannequins thrown from a floating table. It opens with a man in bed being woken by his alarm on Friday, June 21 and a woman greets him with hay? straw? And they join into a crazy scene of people throwing hay? straw? with the hay soaring in graceful arcs across the stage. There are frenzied dances, a large dining table that soars into the sky, and comedic bits. After intermission things get wild, with fish falling from the sky, people falling from the sky, a naked chef and more frenzied dancing, with an echo back to the hay throwing. There is a beautiful singer, Anna von Hausswolff, with a soaring, haunting voice, is she dressed like Elsa from Frozen or hair like cousin It? The singer and the wonderful music by Mikael Karlsson and the wonderful musicians make this an otherworldly fable. And the clock fast forwards to June 21 of the next year and it begins again. Is this a dream? Unfortunately this was the final performance of this run.