At Melbourne Latin Dance we specialize in Salsa, Samba and Bachata and we teach all of our classes as 8 Week structured syllabus courses.
Our ‘thing’ is quality classes
MLD has been running successfully since 2005 and it has become well renowned for the extremely high quality of its classes and technique taught. It’s our thing. There are various contributing factors which all come together to make this happen:
- above all is the high level of technique taught
- limited class sizes
- all our courses run at our own venue which is an actual studio with 20 meters of floor to ceiling mirrors so not only can you see what you are doing in the mirror as you learn - but you can also clearly see the instructor(s). We do not jam pack our classes. Our focus always has been, and always will be quality.
- teaching 8 Week Courses rather than casual classes via tried and tested, organized syllabus so that you learn everything in a logical sequence with just the right amount of repetition
- plus, our classes are FUN!!! You learn more effectively when you're having fun!
Apparently our students love the family vibe at MLD
After more than 14 years of MLD, this updated version of our MLD website was built in 2019, and it was only when putting together the testimonial videos of some of our students for this website that we realized what our students loved the most about MLD! We were already quite aware of how much they love the high level of technique taught and how fun the classes are but until the editing process of the testimonial videos, where almost every single student mentioned how much they loved the “family” vibe at MLD – we really had no idea that so many of our students felt this way!! What a lovely thing to become aware of! So there you have it – our students love that when you’re at MLD, you feel like part of the family! :-)
The Principle of MLD has been dancing for more than 20 years
Liz Conrado is the founder of MLD and she has been dancing since 1995! Do the math on that one! She has extensive experience and disciplined training behind her. Beyond her extensive training here in Australia, she has also trained overseas. In terms of her LA Salsa training, Wikipedia mentions 10 people in LA who are credited with the development of L.A. Salsa - Liz learnt directly from 7 of these 10 while she trained in LA and consequently was one of the pioneers of LA Salsa here in Melbourne. She was the first person in Victoria to receive the Sydney Latin Festival award for "Contribution to the Latin Dance Industry." This could be in part because, being a pioneer and one of the first teachers in Melbourne to teach LA Style Salsa, in sharing her passion for Salsa over the years, many of her students went on to become teachers themselves, thus helping the industry to flourish into the full and vibrant latin dance scene we have today.
Speaking of being pioneers in the Latin dance scene in Melbourne...
- we were one of the first schools to teach L.A. Style Salsa in Melbourne
- we were the first to introduce Bachata classes to Melbourne
- we were the first to start teaching 8 Week Courses as opposed to just casual classes
- we were the very first school to run a Showcase for our students
....and we'd like to think that our passion for what we do will continue to have us lead the way
We’ve been around a while...
Melbourne Latin Dance has been around since 2005, however Liz, the founder of MLD was even teaching for years before that!
Our legacy
The are a some individuals and salsa schools in Melbourne who have contributed a great deal to building a huge Salsa social dancing scene – this has been their forte and everyone in the Salsa scene today,including us, owe much to them. One Melbourne Salsa school in particular. Cudos ;-)
At Melbourne Latin Dance, although we too have contributed to the social dancing scene, our forte and major contribution to the Melbourne Salsa Scene has been to create quality dancers through technical instruction and detail to the Salsa foundations, fundamentals and technique in our classes. This is largely due to the extensive technical dance training and background of the principal of MLD.
As such, many students of MLD have gone on to become teachers in many of Melbourne's vast and growing number of schools, and some have even open their own schools. We are proud to say that at least an estimated 90% of the known Salsa Schools in Melbourne either currently have or have had teachers on their staff who learnt at MLD, and in some cases even the owners/principles of those schools were trained at MLD. We stand proud of this legacy.
We know our sh!t
The long and short of it is that while it is fabulous that the love of Salsa and Bachata is spreading and there are consequently a growing number of Salsa and Bachata schools and teachers in Melbourne, unfortunately to date, there is no accreditation system as such governing teachers. This means that literally anyone with any level or experience can teach. While this scenario is hopefully only the minority in this industry and may well be driven by good intentions and passion for dance, we encourage you to please be sure to do your research when choosing classes and courses and wherever possible do trial classes. Beyond giving you an idea of the skill level of teachers, trail classes will also give you a feel for the various schools and classes so you find the best fit for you!
We offer trial classes of all our courses. Click on the "Free Introductory Class" banner on our home page to book yours now! :-)