I am the mother of 2 girls, and a former dancer myself. My girls have been taking lessons for several years at Take Five, and are currently involved with the company. I can tell you, this studio is one of the best on the west side. I know from my experience as a dancer that the training that the children are getting is great. Along with that, the standards that the studio holds as far as music, costumes, and choreography are ones that I am proud to have my children involved with. As far as the teachers go, I must say that I find it refreshing that all of the teachers are over the age of 18, and have been trained not only in what to teach, but in how to teach. Several of the teachers have themselves been professionals, and know what goes into training a dancer. This is evident when looking at the fact that numerous of their students have gone on to dance careers in professional companies, on Broadway, in movies, at amusement parks, on cruise, and in touring companies. My very own teacher told me years ago that a studio was considered a success if they had one dancer go on to work professionally. If you judge Take Five by this standard, they are an ENORMOUS success, since they have so many of their former students working!

My family and I saw Take Five dancers at
Relay for Life (a fundraising event of the American Cancer Society).
The kids were great, dancing their hearts out and my daughter loved watching them.
Seeing how excited this got my daughter, we decided to check out the studio.

The building was beautiful and we were greeted with a nice smile and felt
very welcomed. The front desk person was really nice and patient with me and
my many questions.

After my daughter took a couple of free trial classes we decided to
register! The teachers were great, enthusiastic and welcoming.
One of the instructors came out and greeted me and my husband, which I truly appreciated.
My daughters is loving dance, her teachers, new friends and is already excited to get to be on stage in the recital!

This dance studio is special not only for their school & instructors, but
for all their community services. We are very grateful and thankful to have found Take Five.

This studio in my opinion is by far not as good as they advertise. Look around, we found something better in the area. You can find better!

My daughters kept having confrontations with other students and the owner would never do anything to fix the problems. Worst of all, I witnessed on several occasions the owner yelling and cussing out customers in the lobby. The environment is very cold here. We've been at a few studios and I have to say that the other negative reviews posted here are pretty accurate. The owner has her favorites, and it really shows. I was not treated too bad by the owner, but the way her attitude is hot and cold...you never know.

My children Channah and Jesse are students at Take Five Dance Academy. We started at Take Five 6 years ago. Channah started out in Miss Jolene?s Creative Dance class that was when the studio was at Van Buren and Dysart Location. My son Jesse joined Take Five 3 years ago with Stacy J?s Boy Hip Hop class. Now both my children are older and currently are taking Jazz, Hip Hop, and Theater. My husband Jay has been in 3 Dad?s Dances. The first time he was in a wheel chair because of an operation done to his ankle. I remember how he really wanted to be in he Dad?s Dance, but was afraid that they would not let him. It was quite on the contrary. Stacy J was EXCITED to have him dance, and he will always be remembered as the ?Dad in the wheel chair?. We are involved with Take Five as a family I have always been back stage for every one of my daughter?s performances, I have never see her perform from the audience, but I don?t care, because I love working back stage. Personally I think I have the best seats in the house! We love Take Five. We love how our children have grown to not only be talented dances but more confident kids. We think the teachers at Take Five are awesome loving people who not only are talented performers themselves but really love working with kids. I also have to commend Maryanne for how smoothly she handles things. When Maryanne says that something is going to happen at a certain time, you can be guaranteed that not only will it happen on time, but it will be completed on time. Maryanne knows how to move people in and out of practices and rehearsals with great efficiency. She should be commended for that.