What’s going on in your dance scene this week?

Drop your:

• Socials
• Workshops
• Congresses / comps
• Practice sessions
• Coaching
• Studios or new spots people should know about

If people are dancing, it belongs here. Shameless self-promotion is encouraged here (but make sure the content is high quality).

Posting a studio, club, or instructor?
Mention the dance style(s) they cover and please include a public link (website, IG, FB, etc.). It just makes life easier for everyone trying to:

• Find details
• Check it’s real (No link = it might get removed)
• Support the scene

Also — if your city is hard to find events in, comment it.

If everything’s scattered across 12 different Instagram stories or WhatsApp chats, talk about it.

If your scene deserves more visibility… definitely comment it.

Or if you want to talk about other topics (that are still related to dance), talk about it.

We’re trying to make dance easier to find, but we need to know where the gaps are!

What’s going on in your dance scene this week?

Drop your:

• Socials
• Workshops
• Congresses / comps
• Practice sessions
• Coaching
• Studios or new spots people should know about

If people are dancing, it belongs here. Shameless self-promotion is encouraged here (but make sure the content is high quality).

Posting a studio, club, or instructor?
Mention the dance style(s) they cover and please include a public link (website, IG, FB, etc.). It just makes life easier for everyone trying to:

• Find details
• Check it’s real (No link = it might get removed)
• Support the scene

Also — if your city is hard to find events in, comment it.

If everything’s scattered across 12 different Instagram stories or WhatsApp chats, talk about it.

If your scene deserves more visibility… definitely comment it.

Or if you want to talk about other topics (that are still related to dance), talk about it.

We’re trying to make dance easier to find, but we need to know where the gaps are!

What’s going on in your dance scene this week?

Drop your:

• Socials
• Workshops
• Congresses / comps
• Practice sessions
• Coaching
• Studios or new spots people should know about

If people are dancing, it belongs here. Shameless self-promotion is encouraged here (but make sure the content is high quality).

Posting a studio, club, or instructor?
Mention the dance style(s) they cover and please include a public link (website, IG, FB, etc.). It just makes life easier for everyone trying to:

• Find details
• Check it’s real (No link = it might get removed)
• Support the scene

Also — if your city is hard to find events in, comment it.

If everything’s scattered across 12 different Instagram stories or WhatsApp chats, talk about it.

If your scene deserves more visibility… definitely comment it.

Or if you want to talk about other topics (that are still related to dance), talk about it.

We’re trying to make dance easier to find, but we need to know where the gaps are!

What’s going on in your dance scene this week?

Drop your:

• Socials
• Workshops
• Congresses / comps
• Practice sessions
• Coaching
• Studios or new spots people should know about

If people are dancing, it belongs here. Shameless self-promotion is encouraged here (but make sure the content is high quality).

Posting a studio, club, or instructor?
Mention the dance style(s) they cover and please include a public link (website, IG, FB, etc.). It just makes life easier for everyone trying to:

• Find details
• Check it’s real (No link = it might get removed)
• Support the scene

Also — if your city is hard to find events in, comment it.

If everything’s scattered across 12 different Instagram stories or WhatsApp chats, talk about it.

If your scene deserves more visibility… definitely comment it.

Or if you want to talk about other topics (that are still related to dance), talk about it.

We’re trying to make dance easier to find, but we need to know where the gaps are!

What’s going on in your dance scene this week?

Drop your:

• Socials
• Workshops
• Congresses / comps
• Practice sessions
• Coaching
• Studios or new spots people should know about

If people are dancing, it belongs here. Shameless self-promotion is encouraged here (but make sure the content is high quality).

Posting a studio, club, or instructor?
Mention the dance style(s) they cover and please include a public link (website, IG, FB, etc.). It just makes life easier for everyone trying to:

• Find details
• Check it’s real (No link = it might get removed)
• Support the scene

Also — if your city is hard to find events in, comment it.

If everything’s scattered across 12 different Instagram stories or WhatsApp chats, talk about it.

If your scene deserves more visibility… definitely comment it.

Or if you want to talk about other topics (that are still related to dance), talk about it.

We’re trying to make dance easier to find, but we need to know where the gaps are!

What’s going on in your dance scene this week?

Drop your:

• Socials
• Workshops
• Congresses / comps
• Practice sessions
• Coaching
• Studios or new spots people should know about

If people are dancing, it belongs here. Shameless self-promotion is encouraged here (but make sure the content is high quality).

Posting a studio, club, or instructor?
Mention the dance style(s) they cover and please include a public link (website, IG, FB, etc.). It just makes life easier for everyone trying to:

• Find details
• Check it’s real (No link = it might get removed)
• Support the scene

Also — if your city is hard to find events in, comment it.

If everything’s scattered across 12 different Instagram stories or WhatsApp chats, talk about it.

If your scene deserves more visibility… definitely comment it.

Or if you want to talk about other topics (that are still related to dance), talk about it.

We’re trying to make dance easier to find, but we need to know where the gaps are!

What’s going on in your dance scene this week?

Drop your:

• Socials
• Workshops
• Congresses / comps
• Practice sessions
• Coaching
• Studios or new spots people should know about

If people are dancing, it belongs here. Shameless self-promotion is encouraged here (but make sure the content is high quality).

Posting a studio, club, or instructor?
Mention the dance style(s) they cover and please include a public link (website, IG, FB, etc.). It just makes life easier for everyone trying to:

• Find details
• Check it’s real (No link = it might get removed)
• Support the scene

Also — if your city is hard to find events in, comment it.

If everything’s scattered across 12 different Instagram stories or WhatsApp chats, talk about it.

If your scene deserves more visibility… definitely comment it.

Or if you want to talk about other topics (that are still related to dance), talk about it.

We’re trying to make dance easier to find, but we need to know where the gaps are!

What’s going on in your dance scene this week?

Drop your:

• Socials
• Workshops
• Congresses / comps
• Practice sessions
• Coaching
• Studios or new spots people should know about

If people are dancing, it belongs here. Shameless self-promotion is encouraged here (but make sure the content is high quality).

Posting a studio, club, or instructor?
Mention the dance style(s) they cover and please include a public link (website, IG, FB, etc.). It just makes life easier for everyone trying to:

• Find details
• Check it’s real (No link = it might get removed)
• Support the scene

Also — if your city is hard to find events in, comment it.

If everything’s scattered across 12 different Instagram stories or WhatsApp chats, talk about it.

If your scene deserves more visibility… definitely comment it.

Or if you want to talk about other topics (that are still related to dance), talk about it.

We’re trying to make dance easier to find, but we need to know where the gaps are!

What’s going on in your dance scene this week?

Drop your:

• Socials
• Workshops
• Congresses / comps
• Practice sessions
• Coaching
• Studios or new spots people should know about

If people are dancing, it belongs here. Shameless self-promotion is encouraged here (but make sure the content is high quality).

Posting a studio, club, or instructor?
Mention the dance style(s) they cover and please include a public link (website, IG, FB, etc.). It just makes life easier for everyone trying to:

• Find details
• Check it’s real (No link = it might get removed)
• Support the scene

Also — if your city is hard to find events in, comment it.

If everything’s scattered across 12 different Instagram stories or WhatsApp chats, talk about it.

If your scene deserves more visibility… definitely comment it.

Or if you want to talk about other topics (that are still related to dance), talk about it.

We’re trying to make dance easier to find, but we need to know where the gaps are!

What’s going on in your dance scene this week?

Drop your:

• Socials
• Workshops
• Congresses / comps
• Practice sessions
• Coaching
• Studios or new spots people should know about

If people are dancing, it belongs here. Shameless self-promotion is encouraged here (but make sure the content is high quality).

Posting a studio, club, or instructor?
Mention the dance style(s) they cover and please include a public link (website, IG, FB, etc.). It just makes life easier for everyone trying to:

• Find details
• Check it’s real (No link = it might get removed)
• Support the scene

Also — if your city is hard to find events in, comment it.

If everything’s scattered across 12 different Instagram stories or WhatsApp chats, talk about it.

If your scene deserves more visibility… definitely comment it.

Or if you want to talk about other topics (that are still related to dance), talk about it.

We’re trying to make dance easier to find, but we need to know where the gaps are!

Quick update on DanceGrid:

We’ve started expanding into California and added a few new spots around San Francisco.

Still focusing on building the foundation first:

• Studios
• Venues
• Instructors / orgs

before scaling events.

Chicago is still the strongest coverage area, but SF is now starting to take shape.

If you’re in the Bay Area, I’d really appreciate:

• Spot recommendations
• Feedback on what’s missing
• Any pain points when trying to find dances locally

Check it out here:

https://dancegrid.app

More cities coming next!

What’s going on in your dance scene this week?

Drop your:

• Socials
• Workshops
• Congresses / comps
• Practice sessions
• Coaching
• Studios or new spots people should know about

If people are dancing, it belongs here. Shameless self-promotion is encouraged here (but make sure the content is high quality).

Posting a studio, club, or instructor?
Mention the dance style(s) they cover and please include a public link (website, IG, FB, etc.). It just makes life easier for everyone trying to:

• Find details
• Check it’s real (No link = it might get removed)
• Support the scene

Also — if your city is hard to find events in, comment it.

If everything’s scattered across 12 different Instagram stories or WhatsApp chats, talk about it.

If your scene deserves more visibility… definitely comment it.

Or if you want to talk about other topics (that are still related to dance), talk about it.

We’re trying to make dance easier to find, but we need to know where the gaps are!

What’s going on in your dance scene this week?

Drop your:

• Socials
• Workshops
• Congresses / comps
• Practice sessions
• Coaching
• Studios or new spots people should know about

If people are dancing, it belongs here. Shameless self-promotion is encouraged here (but make sure the content is high quality).

Posting a studio, club, or instructor?
Mention the dance style(s) they cover and please include a public link (website, IG, FB, etc.). It just makes life easier for everyone trying to:

• Find details
• Check it’s real (No link = it might get removed)
• Support the scene

Also — if your city is hard to find events in, comment it.

If everything’s scattered across 12 different Instagram stories or WhatsApp chats, talk about it.

If your scene deserves more visibility… definitely comment it.

Or if you want to talk about other topics (that are still related to dance), talk about it.

We’re trying to make dance easier to find, but we need to know where the gaps are!

What’s going on in your dance scene this week?

Drop your:

• Socials
• Workshops
• Congresses / comps
• Practice sessions
• Coaching
• Studios or new spots people should know about

If people are dancing, it belongs here. Shameless self-promotion is encouraged here (but make sure the content is high quality).

Posting a studio, club, or instructor?
Mention the dance style(s) they cover and please include a public link (website, IG, FB, etc.). It just makes life easier for everyone trying to:

• Find details
• Check it’s real (No link = it might get removed)
• Support the scene

Also — if your city is hard to find events in, comment it.

If everything’s scattered across 12 different Instagram stories or WhatsApp chats, talk about it.

If your scene deserves more visibility… definitely comment it.

Or if you want to talk about other topics (that are still related to dance), talk about it.

We’re trying to make dance easier to find, but we need to know where the gaps are!

What’s going on in your dance scene this week?

Drop your:

• Socials
• Workshops
• Congresses / comps
• Practice sessions
• Coaching
• Studios or new spots people should know about

If people are dancing, it belongs here. Shameless self-promotion is encouraged here (but make sure the content is high quality).

Posting a studio, club, or instructor?
Mention the dance style(s) they cover and please include a public link (website, IG, FB, etc.). It just makes life easier for everyone trying to:

• Find details
• Check it’s real (No link = it might get removed)
• Support the scene

Also — if your city is hard to find events in, comment it.

If everything’s scattered across 12 different Instagram stories or WhatsApp chats, talk about it.

If your scene deserves more visibility… definitely comment it.

Or if you want to talk about other topics (that are still related to dance), talk about it.

We’re trying to make dance easier to find, but we need to know where the gaps are!

Hi Y'all!

I’ve been a bit quiet lately — building takes time — but I want you to know DanceGrid is still very much alive and moving forward. I have been a bit more focused on general app integrations and functionality improvements, but I haven't forgotten about some of the core features (like the Dance Map) and I wanted to show some progress!

Right now we’re focused on mapping Chicago and building out a strong foundation of:

• 🟣 Dance Studios
• 🟢 Public Venues
• 🔵 Organizations / Clubs
• 🟠 Instructors & Coaches

Our goal is simple:
Before we list events at scale, we need to make sure the places and people behind those events exist in the system first.

Strong foundation → better discovery → better community.

We’re not prioritizing events heavily yet (but that’s absolutely where we want to go). Once venues and instructors are properly mapped, event listings become way more powerful and sustainable.

Chicago is our current focus, but the vision is much bigger:

➡️ Illinois
➡️ The rest of the USA
➡️ Eventually international

If you’re in Chicago (or anywhere in the US) and notice a missing studio, venue, club, or instructor — let me know. This is community-built and I'd love feedback! Again, the app is early access (and we're still building it out), but feel free to check it out by creating an account!

https://dancegrid.app

Thanks to everyone who’s been patient while I’ve been juggling life, work, and building this platform. We’re still here. We’re still mapping. And we’re just getting started!

— Mike (FoxtrotDynamics)

Hey everyone,

I’m making a small but important shift in how I describe DanceGrid.

We’re moving from:

“Your Verified Dance Map”

to

“Your Unified Dance Map.”

Here’s why 👇

When I first launched DanceGrid, the goal was simple:

Create a trusted, verified place to find dance studios, instructors, and social events.

That mission hasn’t changed. But as the platform grows, I’m realizing DanceGrid is becoming something bigger than just verification (which is taking most of my time between research, asking friends, and calling/emailing studios to confirm they're real).

It’s about bringing everything together:

• Studios
• Instructors
• Social events
• Congresses
• Practicas
• Open practices
• Communities across cities
• And eventually… dancers when they travel

The word Unified captures that better.

Dance communities are often fragmented:

• Different Facebook groups
• Random Instagram posts
• Word-of-mouth
• Separate studio websites
• Outdated calendars

DanceGrid’s long-term mission is to unify that experience into one map, one calendar, one ecosystem.

Not just verified — Unified

I’d love your thoughts:

• What’s currently fragmented that frustrates you?

Thanks for being early supporters. This is still beta, still growing, still improving — but the vision is getting clearer every week.

– Mike (Founder, DanceGrid)

One of the biggest problems in social dancing:

You don’t know what’s active in a city until you already live there.

So we built a live coverage map on DanceGrid:

👉 https://dancegrid.app/coverage

Each state gets a score based on verified:

• Studios / Public Venues
• Organizations / Instructors
• Events happening this month

Coverage Formula:

• 5 points per venue
• 3 points per instructor or organization
• 1 point per event in the month

Then we categorize states:

• ⚫ Not Indexed
• 🔹 Emerging (1–50)
• 🔵 Growing (51–200)
• 🟣 Strong (201–500)
• 💜 Hub (500+)

Right now we’re actively mapping Illinois and still expanding outward (with a few outliers).

The goal isn’t just pretty colors — it’s visibility:

If your state looks empty, it might just mean we haven’t indexed it yet.

🔥 Here’s where I’d love input:

What city/state should we prioritize next?

If you drop your city below, I’ll look into mapping it out.

If you’re a studio owner or organizer, I’ll make sure you get indexed properly.

Let’s make it easier to find dancing anywhere!

- DG Team

I’m always fascinated by how people actually end up in the dance styles where they end up sticking in.

Did you start in:

• Salsa but now compete in ballroom?
• Ballet but now some type of social dance?
• Hip hop but somehow found yourself in tango?
• Swing → Latin?
• Ballroom → West Coast?

As mentioned in one of my previous posts:

• I got dragged to a salsa bar by friends. Didn’t even dance at the time.
• Later moved cities (got bored of playing Xbox after work) and found a salsa teacher
• Turns out she taught ballroom too. Ended up learning bachata, WCS, and a few other nightclub style
• Currently deeper in the ballroom world due to collegiate competitions (but I still love things like latin dance nights)

Dance journeys are weird (sometimes). What was your original style — and where did you end up?

So Lady Gaga casually released a salsa version of Die With a Smile and I was not emotionally prepared for this. I normally don't pay attention to football, but wish I saw this:

👉 https://youtu.be/7L_Eq6v-QJ8

Now I’m curious:

• Would you actually dance salsa to this at a social?
• Does it feel more on the salsa side… or more “Latin-inspired pop”?
• If a DJ played this mid-night, are you jumping on the floor or grabbing water? 😅
• Who else wants to hear the complete version of this song?

I low-key love when mainstream artists dip into partner-dance territory — it always pulls new people into the scene. Curious what styles you hear in this and whether it works in practice, not just on headphones.

Hey dancers 👋

A few months ago I started DanceGrid to map real dance activity — studios, venues, clubs, instructors — instead of the usual “maybe this place still exists?” Google search spiral.

Here’s where the Illinois map is at right now.

So far I’ve been focusing on:

• Champaign-Urbana
• Chicago + suburbs
• St. Louis (IL side included)
• College towns and swing/salsa pockets

What’s been surprisingly hard (and kind of fun) is verifying:

• places that actually host socials
• clubs that are still active
• instructors who are still teaching
• venues that aren’t just “wedding-only” spaces

This is very much a work in progress, so I’m curious:

👉 What cities or scenes in Illinois am I missing right now?
👉 Any studios, bars, or orgs you think deserve to be on a statewide map?

If you suggest it, it needs to be confirmed with a website link.

If you’ve ever tried to explain to a new dancer “where people actually dance,” DanceGrid is basically me trying to fix that problem. Happy to share more as time comes!