Grace Okonkwo
Head of Dance
Jazz and Contemporary · here since 2014
Teaches jazz and contemporary, and writes the recital programme.
Dance
Jazz classes in Woodside, Queens
Fast, rhythmic and the most immediately satisfying class in the building for a beginner.
“He wants to dance but he thinks ballet is for girls.”
What jazz actually is
Jazz is where most of our students find out that they like dancing. It moves quickly, the music is familiar, and a beginner is doing something recognisable by the end of the first evening — which is not true of ballet and is the honest reason we start a lot of six-year-olds here.
In the room
What is actually taught
- A warm-up that is genuinely a warm-up: jazz asks for range and speed and both need earning
- Isolations, kicks and turns, built in the same order every term so that a student who joins in January is not lost
- Across-the-floor travelling work, which is the part that looks like dancing and is the part that teaches timing
- A combination that grows across the term, and in the summer term becomes the recital piece
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JazzFirst Steps creative dance ages 3 to 5 | Tuesday | 4:00pm - 4:45pm | Studio B | Grace Okonkwo | 12 | $234 |
| JazzJazz 1 ages 6 to 9 | Tuesday | 4:45pm - 5:45pm | Studio A | Grace Okonkwo | 16 | $286 |
| JazzJazz 2 ages 10 to 13 | Tuesday | 5:45pm - 7:00pm | Studio A | Grace Okonkwo | 16 | $338 |
| JazzJuniors ages 6 to 8 | Wednesday | 5:00pm - 6:00pm | Studio B | Grace Okonkwo | 14 | $286 |
| JazzJazz 3 ages 14 to 17 | Thursday | 5:00pm - 6:00pm | Studio A | Grace Okonkwo | 16 | $286 |
| JazzAdult open eighteen and over | Thursday | 7:30pm - 8:45pm | Studio A | Grace Okonkwo | 18 | $338 |
| JazzFirst Steps creative dance ages 3 to 5 | Saturday | 9:00am - 9:45am | Studio B | Grace Okonkwo | 12 | $234 |
| JazzIntermediates ages 9 to 12 | Saturday | 11:00am - 12:00pm | Studio B | Grace Okonkwo | 14 | $286 |
What it costs
The arithmetic, for one class in full
Jazz 1 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
- Jazz, Jazz 1 — an hourrate$22
- Tuesdays 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 our jazz classes look less flashy than the ones online
A great deal of what is described as jazz on the internet is a competition routine: a short, extremely difficult sequence drilled for months by a small group. It is impressive and it is not a class. A student who is taught only tricks acquires a set of tricks and no way to learn the next one. Ours are built on turns, jumps and travelling that transfer, which in a nine-year-old's first year looks less dramatic and in her third year does not.
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 jazz shoes; both are fine and bare feet are cheaper
- Leggings or shorts and a fitted top, so the teacher can see the line
- Hair tied back
Adult jazz has no dress code at all beyond being able to move and being able to see your own alignment in the mirror.
Questions about jazz
Is jazz only for girls?
No. It is the class where we most often see a boy who came in unsure about dancing at all, because it moves quickly, the music is familiar, and a beginner is doing something recognisable by the end of the first evening.
How quickly does a beginner pick it up?
Faster than anything else we teach, in the sense that matters to a nervous student: there is a combination to show for the first evening. The technique that makes it last is what the later terms build, and it looks less flashy on purpose.
Can an adult start jazz with no dance background at all?
Yes, and most of the adults in our jazz class did exactly that. Every combination is given in a simpler version, and taking it is not a lesser class.
Jazz · 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.