Greenville Ballet School & Company

Great school with very knowledgeable and talented instructors. I thoroughly enjoy the adult classes

We moved to Greenville from Richmond Ballet in Richmond, Virginia, and investigated Greenville's three ballet schools to find the best training opportunity for our girls. We chose Greenville Ballet School based on reputation and because it did not put their young students on pointe before the age of 11, when the child's feet and legs are properly trained to advance to pointe, or require on a specific body type. Andrew and Merry Kuharsky are seasoned dancers and teachers who focus on proper dance technique and the well being of the dancer. Not only have our girls received premium ballet/pointe training, they have also had the opportunity to train in jazz, choreography, tap, hip hop, and modern dance. Entering our fourth season with Greenville Ballet, we appreciate the training our girls have received. They have grown in grown in confidence, technique, and poise. They love dancing with Greenville Ballet and are excited for another ballet season. I cannot recommend Greenville Ballet more highly.

My daughter has taken dance here for 3 years. We were at another dance with her before and my older daughters were at three other studios collectively, so I feel like I have some point of reference to evaluate. I have been thoroughly impressed with Greenville Ballet. Excellence in instruction, professionalism, and caring for the students. At my daughter's fist recital at age 6, I was blown away by what Merry Kuharsky was able to get these tiny little ones to do. I expected a boring recital full of students trying to follow the teacher backstage: a humorous disorganized mess as I had seen in other recitals with kids this age. But these students were poised and had real skills. The Kuharsky's have an amazing ability to balance encouragement and high expectations. I love the fact that all the kids who want to be included are offered a part in the Nutcracker and the Spring performance. I love that attention is given to all the students equally, not just the "super stars". This is a good place for my daughter both in the study of dance and in growing socially and emotionally. I am very thankful for Greenville Ballet!

If your thing is 100% focus on ballet then this could be the place for you. They're not even the best studio for someone wanting to focus 100% on ballet in Greenville but acceptable and may possibly fit your needs but would recommend doing some research. If you're looking for other forms of dance like tap, hip hop, contemporary, etc then I really wouldn't recommend it at all. The management actually seemed to not respect all forms of dance like hiphop and also were not supportive of the competition teams. They seemed to only care about the ballet program. The competition dance side, I think they call it Greenville Jazz, had lot of dissatisfyied parents and kids from what I understood and the signups for next year dropped off substantially. Saw some individual awards but never any news about a competition team getting a really high score or having top finishes. The recital was also on a Tuesday night during the school year with a Monday night rehearsal. The kids did not get home until well past 10pm which is completely unacceptable for a school night with young kids. Most all dance studios do weekend recitals.As far as costs go, they seem more expensive than others and seem to have policies that "nickel and dime" you to death throughout the year.

I wanted to give this review, because I have seen the negative comments on here, and they break my heart. This will be out 9th year with Greenville Ballet. We started back when my oldest was 4 years old. We came from a different dance studio that she attended when she was 3, and were appalled that not only was their ballet program horrible, but the competition dance had some very seductive dancing. We shopped around and found Greenville ballet. It offered mainly ballet, which was what my daughter wanted. We have been pleased at the quality of ballet training that she has received, and their Nutcracker show is great, whether people think it's the "favorite" or not! I also don't understand the claim that they have shady business practices. They post their costs freely on their website. They don't charge a costume fee, but have the kids wear a uniform all year, that they also wear in the Spring Showcase. They don't spend half the year teaching a cute routine for a recital, taking away from the ballet training. Those in the performance class are not charged any extra for a costume, just for the extra class. Their Spring Performance fee is basically the price of 4 tickets to the show, and you get the 4 tickets with it. You do have to pay to see their special performances, because they have to sell seats to pay for the venue. I understand people can have bad experiences, even at the best of places, but felt this business needed a great review to reflect their great company!

This place is in the bottom half of dance schools in Greenville. There are tons of better places around town. The ballet instruction seems to be OK but there are many better out there. I wouldn't settle for this and would look around at some of the more active places. Really their only claim is that they put on the least popular Nutcracker in town as part of their ballet program. The company classes pull it way down. Instructors lack imagination and aren't suited for being around kids. Like many others we talked to, there were inconsistencies in billing practices that just didn't add up and didn't seem trustworthy. After 2 years here it became obvious that some of the management and instructors lacked integrity. These are the examples you will be putting your children in front of as an example and they are just not good role models. They seem to pander to a few that are more of their cult following and blindly listening to their instructions. So many better choices around town.

Very happy with the ballet training as well as the competition team experience. No studio can please everyone...but we've been with this studio for three years now, and we are very happy. Highly skilled faculty, caring individualized attention, and very solid training. The dance styles and class offerings are varied enough that there is something for every preference and skill level. The competition team frequently receives high-point awards at the most respected competition events.