Dance Classes in Geneva

Christine Fendley, founder of Park Avenue Dance Company, became something of a renaissance woman in the world of dance and eventually moved into choreography, raking in a slew of grants from the likes of the New York State Council on the Arts and the Wulitzer Foundation. Alongside the practical experience, Christine has taught children, teens, and adults the graceful art for more than 40 years.

At Park Avenue Dance Company, she leads a troupe of experienced dancers that has been delighting audiences for more than 35 years, performing abstract contemporary movement and the occasional knock-knock joke. The company frequently takes the stage in collaboration with other affluent members of Toronto’s artistic community, including Just Poets and ArtisanWORKS.

Fendley and her team of instructors also teach adults and children of all abilities to perform contemporary, jazz, and barre moves. Their story dance and dance-creation classes teach little ones the joy of dance through lessons in rhythm, improvisation, and classical technique. They also help older students get in shape with Pilates, yoga, and dance-fitness classes.

The skilled instructors of Tango Café train bipedal pupils in Latin, ballroom, and swing dance, including salsa classes that come in flavors both mild and spicy. Over the course of five weeks, Kerri Vaughn, Ruben Fuentes, and Darin Price will immerse students in their choice of classes, such as Cuban and Puerto Rican Club Style, NY/LA Style, and Rueda de Casino. Depending on the concentration of swivel-inciting jiggle juice in your joints, you'll be placed in a Level 1, 2, or 3 class. As you master the rhythm and your hips learn how to roll their r's, you'll learn to both lead and follow dance partners, perform increasingly complex turns, and pull off scintillating combinations. A convenient online schedule lets you coordinate class times with your cat's clarinet lesson.

Dance Arts Studio ensconces students in a nurturing yet challenging environment; its instructors draw upon lifetimes of dance experience to impress spinning silhouettes with the expressive power of movement, line, and composition. One night a week for five consecutive weeks, students 12 years and older can gain a greater understanding of specific dance forms through physical training, mental preparation, and refrigerator poetry. Three styles of dance await ingénues and experts, from the abstract arabesques of a 60-minute modern-dance session to the hip-hop-anticipating syncopation of a 60-minute jazz-dance session. Seventy-five-minute Pilates/ballet combo classes cross-train muscles, sculpting cores capable of holding balance and sustaining pirouettes fast enough to reverse the Earth’s rotation.

At Perinton Dance Company, creativity and experimentation rather than strict formalism guide movement and music classes for kids and adults. Instructors with performance degrees and bundles of stage experience teach more than 15 styles of dance, including jazz, hip-hop, tumbling, social dancing, and ballet. The school's kid-friendly studios and art spaces bloom with interdisciplinary cross-pollination: summer camps revolve around themes such as “Storybook Dance”, where children learn dances, play games, and make crafts related to each story. Evening classes touch on a variety of dance styles, including hip-hop and musical theatre.

When Marina Lisser was 14, she decided to take up dancing, despite the fact that in her native Russia, she was considered much too old to start. Firmly flouting social convention, she thrived, competing at the professional level and landing a fifth-place finish in the European Cup finals. Eventually, she went on to earn a master's degree in Dance Forms and write a dissertation on the psychology of competition.

But none of that prepared her for the shock that awaited her when she landed in New York City to work for Fred Astaire Dance Studios in 1993. She hadn't realized she'd be teaching a totally new kind of student: adult amateurs. She'd only taught professionals and children who wanted to dance for a living. If 14 was too old to start dancing in Russia, how would she teach adults in America?

Through trial and error, she figured it out by ignoring, according to a feature in Democrat and Chronicle, whatever holds her students back. "I'm one of those horrible Russian teachers," Marina confessed. "We want what we want; there is no such thing as limits."

Today, she and her staff of instructors specialize in two styles: American Smooth and Rhythm, and International Standard and Latin. Students learn to waltz, tango, and foxtrot atop the ballroom's sprung wood floor, which cushions feet and joints, while wall-length mirrors help them self-correct their form. In addition to teaching social dance skills and helping affianced couples prepare for their first dance, the instructors also ready competitive dancers to take first place medals in everything from cabaret dancing to swing, often by deftly prancing over the laser security systems that guard them. Marina is certified in dance therapy, as well as social and competitive wheelchair dancing, to make dance accessible to everyone.