Grace Okonkwo
Head of Dance
Jazz and Contemporary · here since 2014
Teaches jazz and contemporary, and writes the recital programme.
Dance
Contemporary classes in Woodside, Queens
Weight, floor and breath — the class that changes how a trained dancer moves.
“She has done ballet for six years and is bored.”
What contemporary actually is
Contemporary starts at nine here rather than at six, and that is a considered position rather than a scheduling accident. The work asks a dancer to give in to the floor and to their own weight, and to do that safely they need enough body awareness to know what they are giving in to. Most of our contemporary students come out of two or three years of ballet or jazz.
In the room
What is actually taught
- Floor work — getting down, getting up, and travelling through the floor rather than on top of it
- Release and suspension, breath-led phrasing, and the swing that ballet spends years teaching out of a dancer
- Improvisation tasks with a real constraint, which is how the form actually generates material
- Partnering from the teens upward, with weight sharing taught before anything is lifted
On the timetable
The classes
Every row is the real class: the day, the room, the teacher and the fee the enrolment system actually charges.
| Class | Day | Time | Room | Teacher | Places | Term fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ContemporaryTeens ages 13 to 17 | Tuesday | 7:00pm - 8:15pm | Studio A | Grace Okonkwo | 16 | $338 |
| ContemporaryAdult open eighteen and over | Wednesday | 6:15pm - 7:30pm | Studio B | Grace Okonkwo | 14 | $338 |
| ContemporaryJuniors ages 9 to 12 | Friday | 4:45pm - 5:45pm | Studio B | Grace Okonkwo | 14 | $286 |
| ContemporaryTeens ages 13 to 17 | Saturday | 12:00pm - 1:15pm | Studio A | Grace Okonkwo | 16 | $338 |
What it costs
The arithmetic, for one class in full
Juniors with Grace Okonkwo is one example. Every other class in this discipline, and every class in the school, is the same sum with different numbers.
How that figure is arrived at
- Contemporary, Juniors — an hourrate$22
- Fridays in Fall Term 2026, recess weeks removed× thirteen—
- Registration, once a school year per studentonce$30
- Fall Term 2026, this classthirteen sessions$286
$22 is the published rate for an hour, and it is on the fees page. That multiplication is the whole of it: no materials charge, no studio levy and no compulsory extras. A 10 per cent family discount comes off every class after the first, and a student joining part-way through the term pays for the sessions still to come rather than for the ones already gone.
Why we do not take beginners under nine
A six-year-old can be taught to lie on the floor and roll, and it will look like contemporary dance, and it will teach nothing that transfers. Worse, the floor work that makes this form what it is puts load through wrists, shoulders and spine in ways a younger body has no reason to be doing yet. There is a creative dance class for the three-to-fives and a jazz class from six; both of them are the honest route into this room at nine.
Who teaches it
One teacher, and no rota
In a school this size, the person watching a technique in the first week of a term is the same person watching it in the last.
Before the first class
What to wear
- Bare feet, or foot thongs if the student prefers them
- Fitted clothing that covers the knees for floor work, and something warm for the beginning of class
- Hair tied back and off the floor
Knee coverage is not modesty, it is friction. A bare knee on a marley floor in the first month of floor work is a burn.
Questions about contemporary
Why can't my eight-year-old take contemporary?
Because the floor work this discipline is built on puts load through a wrist, a shoulder and a spine in ways a younger body has no reason to be doing yet. A creative dance class and a jazz class are the honest route into this room once a student is old enough.
Does my child need ballet training first?
Most of our contemporary students arrive with a few years of ballet or jazz already behind them, because the body awareness those disciplines build is what lets a dancer give in to the floor safely. It is not a formal prerequisite, and Grace will tell you honestly whether a particular student is ready.
Is contemporary physically demanding?
More than any other dance discipline we teach. It asks for weight, floor contact and partnering in ways that reward a dancer who is already used to being corrected, which is part of why it opens later than the others.
Contemporary · one free trial per student
Book a free trial class
A trial is a real class and the student joins in — the only evidence about a school that is not marketing, which is why it costs nothing.