Experienced tutor in Dance in Oakland, Desiree offers private lessons tailored to your needs.

Desiree is such a pleasure to work with and learn from. My fiancée and I were referred to Desiree from her cousin whom also learned their first choreographed dance. Desiree used the first meeting to gauge our ability and decide what style of dance we wanted. She wasn’t pushy about anything and left the whole decision making process up to us, but gave us guidance when appropriate. For our actual lessons, we broke up the dance into several 45 second segments and put the dance together on the fly as Desiree would see what would make sense for us and our progress. We tried doing a relatively slow dance to try and challenge us with more choreography. And in the end we really enjoyed the dance that she taught us. Our wedding is in exactly one week, so we’ll see how it goes. But regardless of how we do, we’re happy we chose Desiree.

If you're looking for a wedding choreographer, look no further! Desiree is the best!

Desiree is an amazing dance instructor! My husband and I took 5 45-min lessons for our wedding dance, and we loved every minute of it! She is so patient and personable, and never makes you feel judged or embarrassed, no matter how awkward we may have looked. We gave her our song choice & let her know our vision (ie we liked waltz), and she made it happen! All our guests at the wedding loved our dance! We’d definitely recommend her & look forward to taking more classes with her in the future 🙂

We came to Desiree with needing help choreography a 4-5min dance routine for our wedding. A mix of western and Bollywood. We came with songs and Desiree was very creative and helpful in helping us develop a routine which looked very impressive at the wedding. Desiree was incredibly warm and patient and incorporated all of our feedback into the routine while providing her own expertise and recommendations. Every lesson was very productive and by the end of our 6 lessons we were confident and ready to perform. Would highly recommend!

Desire is THE BEST! We had such a fun time learning our choreographed dance for our wedding - lifts and all! We were pretty intimidated but she made it all so easy and fun. Thank you thank you!!

My fiance and I decided we wanted to do dance lessons for our wedding a month before our big day and we found Desiree through Yelp! and YES - she is as great as all the reviews say she is. We had no prior ballroom dancing experience and she made us feel really comfortable. We did 5 lessons and it was the perfect amount - 4 lessons to get the dance correct and last lesson for the final touches and tailoring it to face the audience at the right time. Desiree also helped us edit our song to 2 minutes, which we really appreciated.

Our wedding was 2 days ago and our dance went smoothly! We are now considering doing dancing as a hobby together as a couple. Highly recommend Desiree for your dance needs. She is amazing and truly knows what she's doing. She will make sure you look extra good on the dance floor.

THANK YOU Desiree!

Desiree was amazing! She was so patient and kind. It was very fun practicing our first dance with her. We still miss practicing our dance with her! Thank you Desiree for a memory that will last a life time. We will send you a video when we get it!
Thank you,
Donna & Duc

Desiree helped us find a unique choreography for our big day. It was real fun working with her - her passion for dancing is contagious!
She taught us moves that matched our skills and listened to our feedback. Our first dance went smooth and wow'ed our guests - what more could you expect :-)

Desiree was such a pleasure to work with!

We found Desiree on Yelp after finding out the person we originally wanted to commit to was no longer available and it honestly could not have worked out for the better!

Desiree choreographed our waltz + hip-hop dance (~3.5 mins) over the course of 6 45-minute lessons (1 of those lessons was an evaluation for her to test our ability to handle certain difficulty levels and direction).

DESIREE THE INSTRUCTOR:
She was extremely patient and flexible with our schedules and not once pushed for any extra lessons we didn't need. Her technique made it really easy for us to grasp certain movements that we found difficult to learn. It made us feel good that she took the time to repeat anything we weren't sure of. After we had gotten the steps down, she made sure we took time to focus on hand movements/gestures and facial expressions (another really important part of any dance performance).

DESIREE + YOU:
It's important to note that learning a dance is a two-way street: you need to put in the time to practice and memorize your choreography, too. Your money and Desiree's time will go to waste if you don't commit to practicing.

Desiree got us to feel comfortable in breaking out of our boxes to do something challenging and fun for our wedding -- it was worth every penny invested in these lessons. My husband and I got to bond over trying something new and we enjoyed every moment of it. I hope we never forget the choreography!

We will be sending anyone interested in dance lessons her way.

DESIREE'S MASTERPIECE:
You can find our choreographed dance here:
Angle 1 (youtu.be/N1ODzIxOl88)
Angle 2 (youtu.be/oXn2FFTHvQ4)

We booked Desiree to help choreograph our first dance for our wedding. Neither of us has any dance experience. We have a combination of 4 left feet. Desiree was very patient with us and helped us create a routine that we felt comfortable with. She was very accommodating. If the moves were too complicated or we wanted to add a move we found on youtube, she had no problem adjusting the routine for us. When our final meeting with the venue landed on the same day we had a class with her, she rebooked us, even when the new time was a bit late in the day. She works with your schedule. I couldn't be happier with our routine. She was very kind and easy to work with and I would recommend her to any couple who wants a dance routine for their wedding.

Desiree is such a pleasure to work with and learn from. My fiancée and I were referred to Desiree from her cousin whom also learned their first choreographed dance. Desiree used the first meeting to gauge our ability and decide what style of dance we wanted. She wasn't pushy about anything and left the whole decision making process up to us, but gave us guidance when appropriate. For our actual lessons, we broke up the dance into several 45 second segments and put the dance together on the fly as Desiree would see what would make sense for us and our progress. We tried doing a relatively slow dance to try and challenge us with more choreography. And in the end we really enjoyed the dance that she taught us. Our wedding is in exactly one week, so we'll see how it goes. But regardless of how we do, we're happy we chose Desiree.

My fiancée and I came to Desiree after finding her through these great yelp reviews. We walked in with a few songs in mind and told Desiree we just wanted to not look painfully awkward in our first slow dance. She helped us narrow down our song choice and somehow convinced us to go way out of our comfort zone and do a quicker funk song that we thought we couldn't handle. Scheduling was easy, lessons were fun, and she has a way of making you feel like you can actually dance. We can't wait to show off our funky new moves to all of our guests. Thanks, Desiree!

Desiree is a GREAT GREAT instructor. She chore for our first dance and we love it! She has talent to customize the moves exactly for you. We also happened to watch another couple's first dance, very touched and romantic. So Desiree is really an awesome dancer! Choose her, you will not regret!

Desiree is so sweet and such a pleasure to work with.

My fiance and I had no prior dancing experience at all when we approached Desiree. We expressed our vision of our first dance to Desiree and she listened carefully and designed dance pattern that fits our vision: simple, yet intimate and romantic. She helped us finding the right version of the song. During our sessions she made sure we are happy and comfortable with her choreography, and made changes according to our requests.

I had my father/daughter dance lesson with Desiree as well and she helped us slowing down and trimming the song so it's a perfect length.

One last thing, read her page! even if you don't think you need a professional dance lesson. She has many great tips, some of which I never thought would be an issue, to prepare you for a great dance!

I greatly enjoyed working with Desiree and I would recommend any friend who seeks a dance instructor.

Desiree helped my now husband and me from learning a dance from step zero til our wedding day, where we received compliments for our dance. Much credit goes to her! Very affordable and easy to work with compared to other studios we considered. She's great at working with her students just where they are at. She is super patient and has a great intuition for teaching and styles that suit her clients' needs and abilities!

My husband and I are both the beginners for dancing, so we were very nervous for our first dance. Desiree is very patient, also has many ideas creating the movements that it's not very hard for us to handle. Most importantly, her class is really fun and we enjoyed it! Highly recommended

We took lessons with Desiree for our First Dance and we thoroughly enjoyed working with her. She is easy to work with, patient, listens to what you want, and choreographed something that fits your vision and skill level. People were very impressed at our First Dance and we couldn't thank Desiree enough for that. I would recommend her any day.

Also, for those of you who are debating if you would like to take dance lessons for wedding-related dances, I would highly recommend taking them unless you are ok with hug-and-sway. I like to look prepared and I am too stage-shy for guests to stare at me for 2 minutes doing nothing. Having a professional plan out your dance also made me less stressed about the dance. These dance lessons also became a fun activity for us to do during the chaos of wedding planning. I would recommend it. To make best use of everyone's time, you would still want to practice outside of the lessons.

From start to finish, Desiree was wonderful to work with and is a true asset to the dance community.

We initially selected her because her website is informative and transparent and she was relatively easy to get in contact with. I hired her for back-to-back first dance and father daughter lessons (for a total of 9 lessons). I have a background in dance, but my now-husband and father were completely new (and nervous!), and she accommodated us with ease. The guys were comfortable with her after just one lesson and couldn't wait for the next one to come around! I was amazed at how she could go from lesson to lesson and immediately compartmentalize the different choreography -- and if anything didn't fit or feel right, she would help us to come up with something better on the spot. I'm glad we started our lessons when we did (about two months before the wedding day), as it gave us time to fit an additional lesson and we still had a few weeks to continue practicing.

Highly recommend Desiree for wedding lessons and beyond!!

Desiree is amazing! So happy we found her on Yelp because without her help I dont know how our first dance would of turned out. She is very creative in curating a dance for us based on the music choice we wanted.

My fiance and I had no idea where to begin yet what song to choose, but with Desiree's advice and experience we were able to get the dance down by our last session with her. She is very informative, patient, and helpful.

I am so glad we booked with Desiree and would definitely use her services again for future.

My husband and I really wanted to make our first dance a memorable one, and we're so grateful to have found Desiree.

We have zero dance experience, but Desiree helped us find our rhythm! During your first meeting, she gauges your level of comfort and asks you lots of questions in order to get a feel for what kind of dance style you're looking for, and from there, she tailors the perfect dance for you. You have the freedom to choose how many lessons you want to take. We chose to take 4 lessons with her to really perfect our steps. Desiree was so fun to work with! Her bubbly personality helped us step out of our shells, and we had such a great time during each meeting. She made us feel comfortable, she explained everything clearly, and made the whole experience worthwhile. We couldn't have asked for a better teacher! We were super happy with how our first dance turned out, and our guests loved the surprise.

I would definitely recommend Desiree to couples looking for a choreographer! She's amazing at what she does, and I can't thank her enough!

THANK YOU DESIREE!

Me and my husband were going back and forth with whether or not to take dance lessons for our first dance. We are so glad we did! Desiree was able to fit us in for 4 lessons, 2 weeks before the wedding. She was patient, kind, and just the best dance teacher to have. She was able to choreograph a dance to our dance level (which was ZERO and we are both super shy). It was definitely one of our most memorable moments and a nice surprise to our guest :)

Truth be told (and Desiree doesn't know this), my grandfather had passed away 2 weeks before the wedding and I was really hesitant to have something else on my plate but Desiree made the experience enjoyable and I think my grandpa would have loved the dance. Thank you, Desiree!

Desiree was recommended by my cousin, who had a fabulous experience with Desiree and told me I definitely needed to book with her.

My fiancé and I were having trouble coming to an agreement on what our song should be; so during our first lesson, we presented Desiree with our four final selections and began narrowing it down by the types of dance associated with each song, along with our comfort level. We were able to quickly narrow it down to our final choice within a mere ten minutes. She made it so easy!

Desiree was incredibly patient despite us repeatedly making the same mistakes throughout each lesson. She never expressed any negative judgment or frustration when we didn't put her suggestions into practice. We're truly creatures of habit who have a hard time breaking away from bad habits. She would tailor her explanation each time so that it would be easily understandable. Her calm disposition often helped relieve a lot of the stress and pressure associated with dancing (for those of us who are incredibly unseasoned.)

Nonetheless, when we rewatch our videos (we had recorded each lesson on our respective phones), we see the tremendous improvement thanks to Desiree's guidance. We were honestly the most self-conscious, unconfident dancers and now we're actually looking forward to our performance.

I highly, HIGHLY recommend Desiree for any type of dance lesson you're considering.

A choreographed first dance is such a fun way to surprise your guests - we knew we wanted to do this but as two people with zero rhythm (okay, maybe it's just me) we knew we needed help.

We found Desiree on yelp and we're so immensely grateful that we did! We already had a song picked out so our first lesson consisted of us learning two dance types that matched the song to see which one we preferred.

Desiree let us pick our difficulty level and make tweaks as needed. For example, we were getting to the point where we felt our song was too long (3:30 is surprisingly long!) so she made an edited version for us that was 2:45. She also takes into account things like how many sides of the dance floor have guests!

She will record you at the end of each session so you can practice between lessons too! The final lesson is a cleanup where you just focus on arms and fill in any gaps.

I really appreciated how kind and fun Desiree was to work with. The dance she choreographed was so beautiful and it was so fun to perform in front of our family and friends. Don't even hesitate to contact her - you won't regret it!

Desiree is sooo wonderful to work with! We had absolutely no experience dancing, and I certainly have two left feet. Our 1:1 classes with Desiree were so much fun. Something we looked forward to all week! She taught us moves in a fun and effortless way. I can't recommend her enough. If you want to start a fun hobby or activity, 1:1 classes with Desiree is it!