Southland Ballet Academy

For me, the only relevant question in assessing the value of a ballet school is this: what is the level of ballet instruction. The answer to that is … It’s the best in Orange County.
Salwa and her staff routinely turn out young dancers who are very capable, and some of whom have professional careers. If you’re looking for a place based on the level of instruction, this is the place to be.
The summer intensive attracts people from the Mariinsky Ballet, The Princess Grace Academy in Monaco and the Royal Ballet School, as well as the Directors of Youth America Grand Prix. I can guarantee you, those people would not be coming here unless the instruction, and the quality of the young dancers was very, very high

I have the privilege of enjoying the wonderful adult classes and taking my daughter to this beautiful dance studio. I would say the children classes are very crowded (so as most dance places in irvine). Perhaps it can be managed better particularly the waiting area and the drop off. But I truly appreciate the instructions and the instructors have great choreography and class management for such large size. It’s hard to appreciate the artistic talents in a place like this when there’s a lot of customers and it seems all business. I danced for over 2 decades and I really appreciate it offers adult ballet for the local dancers to continue with our passion.

This academy is all about the money and totally insensitive. The administrative support is always a mess. The director, Salwa Rizalka has little compassion for the girls themselves and in fact can be mentally derisive to a child if they are not one of the annointed ones.
Their focus on money and lack of regard for the young dancer’s need for positive feedback in class make this studio a dismal failure. Look elsewhere. ABT is coming to the Segerstrom in September and they will be about the same price as this studio.

Pros: Nice studios. some of the teachers (preballet 3, ballet1) are helpful encouraging. if you are serious about ballet, u can hope to get noticed and seriously train from age 8 (three times per week)
Cons: They raised their prices yet again.
Customer service is horrible. the front desk lady is rarely there and ?
And the lady who always answers the phone is at fountain valley,
and she is always stressed, talks circles circles, and is flippant about concerns/​complaints. She hung up on me saying that she couldn’t hear me with the kids on the background.
But apparently they get away with it because of the Irvine location/​convenience and… the Nutcracker participation.
Just, be prepared: You will pay a lot of money for the Nutcracker experience. And they will make sure that they will get paid.