San Ramon Valley Dance Academy

My girls love it here, they dance just for fun but I believe there is a track for kids who want to go professional. Teachers here are great with the kids and teachers stay, i like the consistency. We have been here for a few years and we plan on staying:)

I enjoy the Ballet I class here for adults taught by Holly. Derek was previously teaching it. Both are excellent professional teachers and dancers! Their personalities are approachable, friendly, and helpful! The class is typically of 15 — 20 pupils yet individual attention from the instructors are still received about form/​technique. Every session is challenging and building skill on top of the previous classes, so it’s definitely going to be tough to jump into the middle of the semester. Be assured that it is a low-​stress environment.
On the first of March, I sprained my ankle and so was not permitted activity for 4 weeks. The school allows 5 make-​ups and typically by the end of the month. However, due to the limitation that a level one student can take and schedule restrictions, the school permitted that I do the make-​ups by the end of the semester. I am glad about that!

I take a teen adul

I love this dance studio.
Taking Beginners Jazz with Byron. He’s such an excellent teacher — very motivating and really wants the students to learn.
Front desk is super nice too.

I took the Adult Beginning Ballet class at SRVDA and was not impressed. The front desk staff told me it was a great class for adults who had never before taken a ballet class, or who were returning to ballet after a long hiatus. I have many previous years of ballet training and wanted something that would keep me in condition but not injure me. After 3 sessions, I dropped the class because it was too fast paced, too aggressive and geared too much toward teenage dancers. There’s no way a novice adult student would be able to keep up in this class; and anyone over 30 taking this class will probably find themselves with stress injuries within about a month’s time.
The teacher gave no care to helping the students break-​down and work through the combinations, no mind to musicality, and had vastly unrealistic expectations about what novice dancers would be able to handle (e.g. Demi-​pointe balances, on one leg, for 30 seconds? Seriously? A back cambre arabesque stretch on the barre? Ouch!) He whizzed through the combinations one after the other, with no attention given to executing the movements with care or precision. Everybody looked completely lost and frustrated, except for a couple of more advanced students who had joined the class to… I don’t know, show off? One student was even wearing pointe shoes, and obviously didn’t have the strength to handle them. Ridiculous! A good teacher would NEVER allow a beginning-​level student to go up on pointe.
I might have put up with the bad teaching if the class were cheaper (say $ 5 per session). But at ~$ 15 per session, no way.
I’d suggest looking around at other ballet schools in the Tri-​Valley area. I found another one in Dublin that offers a great Adult Beginning Ballet class, with a wonderful teacher.

I trained at this studio for 4 years throughout high school, before I left for college.
My favorite classes I would recommend for people who love to dance would be their hip hop, jazz, and modern class. I’m sure the other classes are great, too, but I haven’t experienced them first hand.
I had Kory as my hip hop teacher from beginner level to advanced. He specializes in housing, and focuses a lot on using equal amounts of footwork and upper body work meant to develop quick coordination. He taught in counts, because it’s a foundation he wanted us to build before working too much with musicality. He’s also hilarious, and I always looked forward to class.
I can’t remember who I had for modern or jazz; I did take summer basic jazz with Byron though and that was intensive, and I learned a lot in regards to proper technique and posture. His choreographies were fun, although the overall class was very serious.
I took the adult basic to intermediate classes for jazz and modern (lyrical at one point) as a high schooler; it helped to not be in the same classes as dancers half my height. The adults in these classes usually have years and years of experience. At the end of class we perform the choreo in small groups, so it’s important to get the entire choreography; if the teacher mentally notes you as the worst in your group, chances are they will not let you move up levels at the end of the session.
Over summer they have acrobatics, musical theater, and a lot of other specialized classes that I would recommend kids attending. Overall, SRVDA offers an impressive range of both dance and performing arts classes.