Danny Ruiz
Hip hop and tap
Hip hop and Tap · here since 2016
Teaches hip hop and tap, from four-year-olds to the adult class.
Dance
Tap classes in Woodside, Queens
The most mathematical thing taught in this building, and the one that most reliably makes a child practise.
“Does tap still get taught anywhere?”
What tap actually is
Tap is a percussion instrument played with the feet, and it is taught here as one. Every class works on sound before it works on shape: a step that looks right and sounds wrong is wrong. It is upstairs in Studio C on a marley floor over sprung timber, which is the surface that makes the sound honest.
In the room
What is actually taught
- Single sounds first — dig, heel, toe, brush — until each one is clean on both feet
- Rhythmic reading, so that a student can be told a phrase and reproduce it without seeing it danced
- Time steps and their variations, which are the shared vocabulary of the whole form
- Improvisation from the intermediates upward, in short exchanges, which is where the class becomes music
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TapJuniors ages 6 to 9 | Tuesday | 5:00pm - 5:45pm | Studio C | Danny Ruiz | 10 | $234 |
| TapTeens and adults eighteen and over | Tuesday | 6:00pm - 7:00pm | Studio C | Danny Ruiz | 10 | $286 |
| TapFirst Steps ages 4 to 6 | Thursday | 4:00pm - 4:45pm | Studio C | Danny Ruiz | 10 | $234 |
| TapIntermediates ages 10 to 13 | Friday | 6:00pm - 7:00pm | Studio C | Danny Ruiz | 10 | $286 |
| TapJuniors ages 6 to 9 | Saturday | 11:00am - 11:45am | Studio C | Danny Ruiz | 10 | $234 |
| TapTeens ages 13 to 17 | Saturday | 12:00pm - 1:00pm | Studio C | Danny Ruiz | 10 | $286 |
What it costs
The arithmetic, for one class in full
Juniors with Danny Ruiz 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
- Tap, Juniors — forty-five minutesrate$18
- Tuesdays in Fall Term 2026, recess weeks removed× thirteen—
- Registration, once a school year per studentonce$30
- Fall Term 2026, this classthirteen sessions$234
$18 is the published rate for forty-five minutes, 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.
It is loud, and that is the whole point
Studio C is upstairs and it is the noisiest room in the building. Parents waiting in the corridor below can hear it. We are not going to teach tap on a carpet or in soft shoes to make it quieter, because the sound is the subject. If your child is sound-sensitive, come and stand in the room for five minutes before you enrol — a trial class exists precisely so that this is a thing you find out for free.
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
- Tap shoes, and they are the one thing you cannot substitute
- Leggings, joggers or shorts — anything you can move in
- Hair tied back
Buy tap shoes half a size large for a growing child and put an insole in. A pair lasts about two years that way instead of one term.
Questions about tap
Is tap really that loud?
Yes, and we say so on this page rather than let you find out from the corridor. If sound sensitivity is a concern, come and stand in the room for five minutes before enrolling — the trial class exists for exactly this.
What shoes do I actually need?
Tap shoes, and they are the one item you cannot substitute with something you already own. Buy them half a size large for a growing child, add an insole, and a pair lasts about twice as long.
Is tap hard for a complete beginner to start?
It starts with a single clean sound on one foot, then the other, before anything is put together — the same order every term, so a student who joins mid-year is not lost.
Tap · 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.