The Sonata Room / Latin Dance Pros

What dancers say

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  Monica A.

  Local GuideGoogle

  · 10 mo. ago· 53 reviews

  Nice friendly atmosphere. Great place to learn Latin dances. Brandon is an amazing teacher.

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  Tuyen V

  Google

  · last yr.· 3 reviews

  The Sonata room is a dedicated dance studio. Their current lessons are in Swing, Salsa, Bachata and Argentine Tango. Friday/Weekend socials alternate between Salsa, Swing, Milongas, and Ballroom. The instructors have competed at the highest professional levels and can teach just about all styles. Though they can teach most styles, the demand needs to be strong enough for the studio to dedicate time on their calendar to any specific style. They also humbly bring in a rotating cadre of world class Tango instructors. If you're a Tango student, this studio will save you from taking a trip to Argentina to learn. Truly, this place is a gem for the Tango community. Their monthly Milongas gets really busy as a result of their dedication to this dance. The dance floor is square in shape. I've seen rectangular floors that sometimes have support pillars in the center. The Sonata room's floor is huge and not interrupted with any pillars. Small round tables, chairs and mirrored walls encircle the perimeter of the floor. The table arrangement makes it easy as a follower to be on the edge of the floor and be easily seen to be asked for a dance. As a lead I don’t have to step through layers of people to get to someone in the back. As of this writing, socials are $20. Not bad considering free parking, variety of snacks and a water cooler is provided for free. Almost always someone's birthday is celebrated and so you can also get a slice of cake. The metro gold line is also literally across the street for great public transportation option. Other places I've been to require paid parking or validated parking that doesn't always work. Other places may not allow you to bring your own water as they try to sell you bottled water. Admission for the social also includes a lesson. The lesson starts and ends on time. I've recently gone to another venue where the lesson ran over an hour into to the social dancing time. I sat next to a frustrated patron who was getting cold having to wait for the lesson to end and general dancing to begin. The speakers are located high off the ground. I really appreciate this because the music radiates comfortably through the place without blasting directly in your ear if you happen to be next to it. This means I can actually have light conversation. Other places may be impossible to have any conversation without speaking loudly into the other persons ear. And at the end of the night I don't leave the Sonata Room with a ringing in my ear that follows me to bed as I've had elsewhere. My experience here is mainly from the Salsa socials so my comments mainly reflect the same. Hopefully I get good enough for the Swing socials. Will report about that experience if/when I attend. Until then, hope to see you here for the Salsa social.

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  Juan Gonzalez

  Google

  · last yr.· 1 review

  Great dance environment with friendly dancers of all levels.

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  Sanjay Jayachandran

  Google

  · last yr.· 11 reviews

  Awesome venue. Superb instructors

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  Michelle Mace

  Google

  · last yr.· 3 reviews

  Best and safest and most welcoming place for salsa socials! They have such a lovely community! Great dancers too! I learned everything from Laura and Brandon from their classes at their studio!

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  Ed Lee

  Google

  · 3 yr. ago· 2 reviews

  I’ve been consistently studying Argentine Tango with Brandon at Sonata Room for 5 years now. I can say that his teaching style is truly excellent, distilling experiences from decades of dancing and countless lessons from esteemed Argentinian performer/instructors into easily understandable explanations. There are great dancers and then there are great dance instructors. Teaching what one knows is an entirely different skillset from just performing, a craft which Brandon has honed for his classes. His focus on building from a clean, solid foundation for all his students has him explaining all the nuances and details of footwork and body positions for each step, often using creative analogies to capture the feelings of each step when we do it right. He doesn’t just teach steps, he teaches us the structure behind the steps so we can hopefully realize new steps easier because we already recognize their components. Brandon is a wonderful teacher to come to as a beginner and grow into greater and greater sophistication as your own Tango journey blossoms.