Twinkle Toes Dance Company

This review is for the dance teacher Ms. Christine and the studio set up in general: I really have enjoyed taking my daughter here for the last 6 months, and Christine is a gifted teacher who is enthusiastic, kind, fun and patient. My 2.5 daughter likes her and the class and the studio itself is sweet and fun and artsy. Parking is almost always available out front at the meters. The prices seem pretty reasonable as far as I can tell. I would really recommend to other parents. I have seen my daughter grow and be able to participate and listen more and more each week which has translated to other parts of her life.

My 2.5 year old loves her ballet classes here! I feel like they are developmentally appropriate; they involve lots of make believe with just the right amount of structure. Miss Celadon is very good with this age group (2 – 3 years). She provides just the right level of control required to keep a room full of toddlers involved and having fun, without it feeling overbearing. I also appreciate that she provides kind feedback to the children when it’s needed, on topics like waiting your turn, respecting personal space, manners, etc. This allows the parents to truly sit back and enjoy the magic of their little girls twirling around the room in tights and tutus, without ever feeling like you have to jump in to handle/​prevent anything. Overall, I am so happy that I purchased the class! It was well worth the money and we will definitely do it again.

My family loves Twinkle Toes. I have two girls in classes here and I have also taken adult ballet. I really love the experience here — my girls are very different in that one is serious dancer and the other does it for fun — this studio caters to both. The committed dancer is in the company class which is super focused and technical. Karen and her fellow teachers take a lot of time and attention to instruct the girls on correct form and to help each of them grow as dancers. But there are lots of classes that are much more laid back and perfect for my daughter that is looking for an less formal outlet to express herself physically. The atmosphere is fun and hip and homey — my girls feel right at home and so do I. And super convenient for Highland Park residents.

i really feel like an ahole for writing a less-​than-​stellar review for a local business but I’m just disappointed with Twinkle Toes. Some of the teachers are quite rude and/​or seem to have no clue how to handle children. Kids with bad behavior are actually rewarded while the well behaved kids get shafted. If you’re working with toddlers, you need to know how to handle them. There is one teacher in particular that I have no idea how she’s still working there. I dont know her name but she is a young beautiful blonde with a horrible attitude and appears to pretty much detest children judging by the look on her face of sheer torture (FYI this is a review i never finished from about 1.5 years ago so hopefully theyve improved since then).

My twins have been going on and off for 3 years or so and they love it. The teachers are kind, yet very professional, so I’m happy with the training they’re getting. Plus, Twinkle Toes has a variety of classes, so we’ve tried Tap, Ballet, and hip-​hop. It was nice for the twins to shake things up. Now at home, they dance in the living room, dance out in the yard… they truly found the joy of dance, and I thanks Twinkle Toes for that.

Both of our daughters have been a twinkle toes for a year now. They are in hip hop, jazz, modern, tap, ballet 2 and intermediate ballet. Both girls dance in Karen’s Company Ballet. We love the quality of instruction, the location of the and the staff. My 11 year old takes private lessons with Karen and is challenged, week after week. I am thrilled my daughters are dancing in their neighborhood, with their community and friends. When we first joined Twinkle Toes a year ago, I went to Karen and expressed concern because my daughter had been dancing for years and was far off from her splits. Karen assured me this is normal for a long legged child and not to worry, now a year later my daughter has her right splits and is now very close to her left splits. I feel Twinkle Toes is a studio that is friendly, delivers great results to their dancers as well as offering them support to grow.

My daughter has been dancing here for the last 3 years and we love it. The studio has a small, community-​centered feel to it. The ambiance of the space is creative and inspirational. The teachers are all knowledgeable and great with kids. Many dance studios can be stuffy, strict, and rigid, but the studio owner here does a great job of balancing fun and creativity with developing dance skills. I highly recommend it.

I just started bringing my 10 year old daughter to the hip hop dance class held on Saturday mornings. My daughter loves it, the instructor is very patient and very interactive with all the children. I’m very pleased I signed her up with this studio.

I enjoy seeing my daughter have fun in her ballet class.

We have had my 3 year old daughter in two ballet classes. Our first experience was awesome. The teacher was great and my daughter loved it. The second time around was disappointing. I called to ensure I was putting my daughter in the right class since she was between age groups. I registered for what I was told was the best class for her only to arrive the day of class to be greeted by a different instructor who was rude and frustrated. She informed me that my daughter was too young for the class. I’m not one to be easily annoyed or complain, but I was bothered enough by the exchange to email the owner to address the issue. I never heard back… which was another disappointment. The rest of the classes were hit and miss since we couldn’t find the right fit for her level. It’s with a heavy heart that we won’t be going back to twinkle toes because it does a lot of other things very well. I wish the studio the best but, again, we won’t be going back.

This place really needs better business skills. Karen is really shady in how she pays her employees and tricks new employees into working for her for free then she cuts them loose. She will «hire» someone and agree to pay them a certain amount while they are «training» then if she fires them while they are still training, she won’t pay them for their time on the rate that was agreed upon unless they hound her. Parents beware if you need a refund or dealing with money matters with her. Shady business practices.

My daughter has been in Karen’s ballet classes since she was 2 ½ and she’s now 4. She loves going every week and it’s been so fun to see her grow as a dancer. They recently renovated the back area to create two studios, which is great. My daughter dances around the house and loves to do her ballet poses and stretches at home. Karen is patient with the students, but strict when necessary. I would definitely recommend this dance studio to others. She also puts on a nice recital twice a year.

Miss Celedon represented this dance studio and traveled to my daughter’s school in Beverly Hills once week. In the year my daughter attended she learned the basics of ballet and only had positive experiences that affect her to this day. There did not appear to be favorites… This instructor was professional and I feel some of these other reviews are unfair. I have never met Karen, and I have never been to the actual studio, so I cannot speak for that.

Warning!!! This place is a complete waste of time. She plays favorites and your child will not get a fair chance unless your in her «favorites» circle. My child performed in her recital recently and her performance was cut short at the end because Karen felt the need to bring everyone on stage before the last act had there time to perform. Parents were scrambling around and shuffling kids around while our children were still performing. Every other child had there chance without an interruption. This was a complete sham. Come here if you want your child to be treated second rate. This should be about the children and not about her personal profit margin or her friend circle. She may have good intentions, but bad execution.

Karen is really sweet and patient with the kids that take her class. I like that she pushes the kids to do some hard things which allows them to grow confidence. My daughter loves it here!

I love Twinkle Toes Dance Studio, my daughter started in May and we love it. The instructor, Karen, does an amazing job with the girls! We will definitley come back for the new session in August. The prices are fair and the studio is great to have in this community. Love it!

I am very happy with Twinkle Toes Dance Studio! Ms. Karen and her teacher assistants are amazing with the children. My 2 year old daughter loves going to class. She has learned so much since her first class. She can follow instruction, wait for her turn, learn a routine and many more great dance moves. I am very happy and looking forward to sending her for many more years.

This place is great. Such a loving and caring environment. Karen works incredibly hard with all the kids, and really does an amazing job considering the age range, the talent (as it were with these little kids), and the amount of students.
Twinkle Toes is an amazing addition to the neighborhood, and I hope that it stays fro many, many years and continues to grow.

Our kid has been with this «company» since … pfffffft. Sorry, I was about to write as if I had a stick up my ass.
Karen and her instructors put together a great package of age-​appropriate classes for the little ones. Their studio is very new, so they are still finding their legs and feeling out class sizes — but they have been working hard to develop a program that will get your kid comfortable with using their body to express themselves.
At the time of this writing, there is an outdoor patio for parents to get out of the way while their kids are in class. Instructors are flexible enough to let a few parents sit in on the class when their little ones aren’t ready to be alone with a room full of kids dancing early on a weekend morning.
It is great to have an affordable resource like this in our community — one afflicted with all sorts of asthma and obesity trouble.

Our daughter has pretty much been with the company since Karen started it. It has been wonderful to watch it grow and Karen is very sweet… but, sorry to disagree with everyone here… the company has grown too big for Karen to manage with the little help she has. The classes are now too large and it has mostly degraded to Karen trying to teach a class while also trying to wrangle children who can’t stay focused. This is a huge parent problem as well. Too many parents take their kids in, check out, and show no interest in controlling their kids or encouraging them to participate. Our daughter has always taken her ballet really seriously (I guess it’s just her thing) and Karen told us she would be good moving from Saturday to Wed. where the class was «more technical» with just a few kids. In the end week after week more kids got piled into the class until it became a chaotic overbooked mirror of Saturday.
Twinkle Toes is a really fun laid back environment for toddlers where there isn’t an expectation of learning much more than how to have fun and dress up in a tutu, but when it comes to kindergarten and up, not much can be accomplished in this company. Our daughter has participated in 2 shows over the last year, both of which were totally a mess. They were cute, but no one knew what to do, where to stand, even after close to 4 months of learning the routine in class !?
All in all, it was a fun start for her, but for the money (at about $ 130 every 6 – 8 weeks for 1 insanely packed, crazy class a week) we will have to be moving on. Hopefully with more staff and smaller classes that are broken into smaller age brackets (no 3 year olds with 8 year olds) Karen can get the company back on track :)