Val Cunningham

Val is simply the best! My fiancé and I were wanting a first dance that would me memorable and fun. I have danced all my life, but my fiancé just recently started showcasing his rhythmic talents in public (before our wedding they were mostly displayed to me only, in our kitchen, ha). I first thought I could choreograph it myself, by quickly realized I had no idea how to choreograph a dance for two people, so professional help was needed. Val to the rescue!
Her process is so fun and engaging and. She helped each of us showcase our best selves and took time to understand where our strengths were for movement. She really knows her stuff! Val also gave my fiancé a HUGE confidence boost and was able to help him break out of his shell and really own the dance floor. I can definitely say our time with Val has helped well beyond the first dance. I LOVE dancing and always dreamed that my husband would enjoy dancing too, and that wish has truly become a reality since our wedding!
Our first dance was to a very special song and Val was able to create moves that we NEVER would have thought of. We even did a couple lifts which went far above my expectations! Talk about that wow factor during a first dance! Those few minutes on the dance floor with my husband was by far the favorite part of our wedding for both of us and our guests agreed. We were having a blast and everyone could see that, which really helped set the tone for the amazing dance party that followed.
Val was also just super fun to work with, always making us laugh and feel like we were doing a great job. She knows how to facilitate connection between couples and help your minds and bodies get in sync. It was a really fun ritual seeing her once a week for a little over a month as we prepared for our big day. The drive home was always filled with laughter and excitement thinking about the moment we would finally get to do our dance in front of friends and family.
I would HIGHLY recommend Val to any couple looking to create a memorable first dance, or just get comfy moving your body to music :-)

Came in on a Friday in June
The studio is equipped with tall ceilings, lots of mirrors, a good sound system and good energy!
I wanted to get a lesson from Val but fate led me to Nick :) he asked us a bunch of questions that seemed weird but later I understood why,
He is a great listener and was already planning in his head who we were and how to teach us to dance.
It feels funny dancing on command in front of a new person /​instructor but it’s necessary.
Nick emphasized to practice as much as I could, I totally didn’t practice and it showed at our next meeting. Even when he saw me get frustrated he found a way to make me have more fun. He definitely has good energy :) After that I practiced and it became way easier.
I would totally recommend Nick :) he’s GUDE !!!

I can’t dance, and honestly I really don’t like to dance. But for my wedding, I knew I didn’t want to go out in front of all my family and friends and make a fool of myself (and more importantly my wife). So my wife and I decided to sign up for dance lessons.
Val was simply amazing. She is not only brilliant at learning what each person can do, but she has an uncanny ability to understand a couple and how they work together. My wife and I showed up early a few times and got to see how good Val is at tailoring her teaching methods to different couples. She brought us along slowly, learning one step at a time, and in the end choreographed a dance for us that went off better than we could have ever hoped for (a guest even referred to me as Mattric Swayze).
My wife and I originally signed up for five lessons and in the end signed up for a sixth simply because we enjoyed working with her so much. The time my wife and I spent with Val left us with a memory we will always look back on fondly.
Val Cunningham is great at what she does and a pleasure to work with. If Unilocal offered a sixth star I would give it to her.

We scheduled an emergency lesson with Nick a week before our wedding and he was more than helpful. Nick was very gracious with his time and even though we just had 1 lesson with him, he gave us some excellent advice and I feel much better heading into our big moment at the wedding. I could definitely sense his love for dance and his wanting us to do well. He was encouraging and it was easy to follow his directions. If I could do it, anybody can (I have 2 left and backwards feet). I highly recommend this dance studio to anybody and working with Nick was fun and informative. After the wedding, we may even continue to take lessons with him.

VAL IS A MIRACLE WORKER! My fiancé and I have two left feet and were very reluctant to undertake a «First Dance» course, but knew we wanted to impress our guests. After reading her reviews, we chose Val to help us transform from two clumsy caterpillars into two beautiful, in sync, butterflies — a tall order to be sure. Val got to know us, our weaknesses and strengths, and patiently coaxed our butterflies into the light. She taught us dance and created choreography that garnered hoots of pleasure from our guests! MAGIC!

I loved (and very much needed) our dance lessons with Val. I enjoyed her eccentricity and learned so much from her. She choreographed our dance to make us feel comfortable and our guests were so entertained.”

It was absolutely fantastic to work together with Val. I would sign up for dance lessons with her again in a heartbeat. My fiancé and I were planning a «Viennese Ball» themed wedding in Austria — and needed to learn how to waltz. We signed up for 10 dance lessons with Val. What started as a tactical, goal-​oriented venture turned into a really enjoyable process of learning a life skill together. Val is a great teacher — a therapist and dance instructor in one :) She is super creative and can turn a blurry vision into reality. She is also really fun and easy to connect with. Highly, highly recommended!

Val is the best! She really makes an effort to understand you as a student and gives you the confidence you need to learn and grow and feel comfortable with your dance! Highly recommended.

we worked with val for the big wedding, father daughter dance, bride and groom. val was insanely good, none of us really had any chops to start with but val’s patience and genius choreography talents saved the day.
result was awesome we were all so thrilled. one guest came up and said «wow, i didn’t know you could dance». I can’t i said, i just went to Val !!
highest recommendation.

We’ve been taking private wedding dance lessons for our first dance with Val. She has been absolutely wonderful. She spots the difficulties we have with great accuracy.
She is great at explaining the dance moves and the feelings behind them.
We had a lot of fun and learnt a lot.
Every time we left her studio we were feeling super, filled with positive energy.
I would recommend her to anyone from beginner to proficient.

My husband and I had Nick as our teacher for two dance classes.
The first class was great and we learned alot. We liked it so much that we signed up for another towards the end of the class.
The second class, I would give 1 star. Nick seemed very distracted and disinterested in teaching us. It’s $ 100 for an hour class and Nick was 15 minutes late. Then he had us freestyling for the following 15 minutes. He wasn’t really watching us or giving us any instructions.
There was a couple waiting for the time slot right after us, so we pretty much got jipped out of a quarter of our class time. When it was over, he said his goodbyes and also mentioned not to come back until we had practiced a bit more. I guess we weren’t learning fast enough for him to be interested in teaching us again.

Val was an awesome guide and instructor for me and my (then) fiancé’s first dance. She made my husband feel comfortable, helped me come out of my shell and overall just left us feeling really good not only about our dance, but our relationship as well. She is great company and I hope to see her again!

My fiancée and i took lessons from Val and the entire experience was great. I have very limited dance skills and grew up more in the running/​swimming/​ball-​sports world and never really worked on skills like dancing. We started with Val and took 12 total lessons and came up with an amazing 2-​song 3minute dance mashup. Our dance should be pretty awesome (performing it next week at our wedding). I’m feeling so much more confident while dancing and learned a very awesome routine. Val made it very comfortable for me to learn the basics and also look great. She’s very involved and has charismatic enthusiasm and very beautiful energy
I think we may even continue dance lessons after our wedding as our prior lessons were a lot of fun with Val — taking dance lessons with my fiancée made her so happy. I highly recommend the dance loft /​val cunningham. It does cost a bit and i was skeptical at first, but looking back it was 100% worth it.
side note — during several lessons, the other instructors were hanging out and giving tips/​thoughts and sometimes were teaching a different lesson next to us. The other instructors besides Val seemed to be very skilled and like great teachers. We had Val, but the other instructors would’ve been great to work with as well.

Nick Lau was our dance instructor for our wedding in April 2014 and he was absolutely fantastic! I wasn’t very experienced, but Nick was super patient, really friendly and a great teacher to help us put together an awesome first dance. My fiancée and I also just had fun taking the lessons with Nick (and for me, I didn’t think dance lessons could be fun)! I highly recommend Nick at Val Cunningham and wouldn’t hesitate to book your lessons with him!

This is so long overdue! We took classes from Eldon, who was such a great instructor.
As a background, my husband and I are not dancers at all, and my guy had some typical ‘dude’ reservations about formal ballroom dancing, but we both ultimately ended up really enjoying the process and were well prepared for our wedding! Eldon completely put us at ease and helped us build confidence. We were also really pleased that we were able to get some basic steps in 4 sessions, but we weren’t really looking for any complex choreography.
In contrast, I took a dance class with my father back East and understood that the instruction given there was totally different. That experience made me appreciate Eldon’s ability to really simplify the steps and also make it fun for us!
We also really enjoyed the location, and took the opportunity to make the dance lessons into date nights in the dogpatch. Looking back, it was one of the more fun experiences of wedding planning.
Thanks, Eldon!

My fiancée and I went to Val hoping she could turn us into dancers in time for our wedding. She did. And then some. And she was awesome.
We loved going to see Val once a week for dancing, drinks, laughter, and Val’s insanely amazing people skills.
She was lovely and our dance was terrific– against all odds and our wildest predictions.
Hand down, best dance teacher in SF. Highly recommended
Thanks Val!

Val Cunningham is without question an amazing dance instructor! My fiancé and I just completed our 5^th dance lesson tonight before our wedding this weekend. Val is extremely outgoing, patient and most importantly easy going person. We felt no pressure at all when she was instructing us. She is a true professional in every facet but what really stood out was how well she got to know our personalities and what we wanted out of the lessons. (as that can vary client to client)
For whatever kind of dance lesson or instruction you are looking for, I would look no further than Val Cunningham! I truly cannot say one negative thing about our entire experience. My fiancé and I feel sooooo much more confident for our 1^st dance at our wedding this weekend and honestly would have probably looked terrible without Val’s AWESOME guidance, instruction and great tips for the dance on our special day!
THANK YOU VAL! You simply are the best!

We decided to pay for some dance lessons as we did not want to bore our guests to sleep with a standard swaying/​two step routine for our first dance. Val was not available during the time we booked, but we luckily got Eldon. We decided on the 5 lesson package and it was worth the investment.
Eldon has a fun, easy-​going personality. He’s always positive with his critique and is very open to suggestions if you are uncomfortable with a certain move. He will come up with a beautiful routine for your song. He’s definitely passionate about what he does. You gotta love that.
We impressed our guests at our wedding… thanks a bunch Eldon!

We knew we needed help if we were not going to embarrass ourselves during our first dance on the wedding day. When we began I had decent rhythm and a few long ago tango and ballroom dance lessons under my belt, but frankly, I was chaotic and a bit gawky, and mostly useless on the dance floor without a very strong lead. My fiancée, a true introvert, had almost zero partners dance experience (but for a ½ dozen stilted, failed ballroom lessons 3 years prior where they taught little more than how to count steps). He had difficulty moving on beat, and was completely uncomfortable with dance and performing.
Val taught my fiancée more about how to lead confidently and move gracefully into the music in the first 2 hours of lessons than he’d been able to pick up his entire life. She transformed my gawky lines and posture into refined elegant shape, and had me properly following my fiancée’s lead before I even knew what had happened. We suddenly looked like we knew what we were doing — and we were actually having a fantastic time doing it. We started spontaneously breaking into dance at home or at a party. Val’s patient, positive, savvy instruction turned us into dancers!
Because we would be performing our first dance to a live band and singer (hence no exact recorded music to practice with), Val put our first dance together not as an end-​to-​end choreographed routine, but as a series of combinations, moves, and transitions that we practiced to a few similar versions of our song. It worked perfectly.
They sighed, they cheered, and they wept. We received repeated rave reviews and compliments on our first dance for weeks after the wedding. They said we were graceful, romantic, and looked like we’d been doing it for years. Val took us from awkward, uneasy and stilted to elegant, confident and smooth in 6 hours of instruction. She is an amazing teacher. Go to her. She will teach you not only how to dance, but how to love to dance.
(See photos of our dance above. We danced to a bluesy jazz version of «At Last» sung by Clairdee.)

Val is awesome awesome awesome. My husband (then fiancé) told me it was my job as an elite Unilocaler to find a dance instructor. I did a random Unilocal search and found a few dance instructors. Based on the reviews, I liked Val because she has her own dance studio and you have a private lesson in a private space.
We brought a few songs along on our iPhones and Val carefully listened to each and told us what she thought was a good song to dance to. We chose Yellow. She had her in-​house music editor edit the song to about 3 minutes long. We bought Val’s 5 class package and dutifully went to her studio every Wednesday evening. Val taught us how to dance, how to do a dip, how to move and listen to the music. Not only is Val a great teacher, I felt that she was almost like a life coach at times too (how to walk assertively and be confident).
We had our wedding in Thailand a week to this day. We had a beautiful beach wedding, cocktails, thai dancers and drummers leading a procession to the ballroom and finally we made our entrance as a married couple. The DJ hit out song and out we went. I don’t know how we looked (as I haven’t seen the video yet), but people told us that we looked amazing and were impressed. We owe our credit to Val. She made us look beautiful and amazing for our wedding and I thank her for that.
I will recommend her over and over to any of my friends who want that special first dance for their wedding.