Jungle City projects

The teachers from Jungle City ran two dancehall workshops with Year 9 students at our recent Junior Camp. They followed this with a dancehall jam, and the students loved it!!! High-energy, engaging and so much fun! Highly recommend!!

Jungle City is both an amazing creative space and an incredibe arts community! Highly recommend the studio as a space to hire for classes as both studios are large and well priced with great facilities in good condition. The regular classes are also fantastic and good for all levels of dance styles! Cat does a wonderful job supporting arts projects and promoting non-mainstream dance culture, as well as reaching out to the global dance communities that create the styles she teaches! Definitely a great hub for dancehall, afro and samba with real insight as respect for the Jamaican/African/Brazilian creators. You won't regret stepping into this vibrant space!

Such a welcoming atmosphere. I have never danced before and they made me feel comfortable. I love that the teachers really respect the culture and tradition of the styles they teach. I also love that parents and their children can attend classes here. Real sense of community. This is more than a dance school, it’s a place to build confidence, friendships, and of course, steps that you can take to the club.

How do I even put into words how much I love this place! Jungle City is such a haven for dance and culture. There is no judgement or ego in sight, just pure love for dance culture from all over the globe. There is a great range of classes on offer that cater to all dance levels. A billion times recommend Jungle City to all dancers (and non dancers) out there!

Jungle City performed in a club night I helped produce for Melbourne Fringe, and they were phenomenal! Really great to work with and fantastic performers. They had the crowd going wild. I'd absolutely book them again!

My young son (aged 5) attended a 50-minute 'drop-in' hip-hop dance class at this place for his first ever dance class yesterday (19jul2019). BEFORE accepting what seemed like an EXTREMELY reasonable (low) amount of money from me, the chick who went on to run the class ('Steph', or 'Soph', or something like that) went to great lengths to make it clear that she was a 'substitute/fill-in' instructor; but that turned out to be utterly irrelevant because she was totally brilliant with ALL the kids in the session.'Instructor SPH' had 8-10 kids to contend with, and all were of different levels of ability, concentration capacity, interests etc. ... SOMEHOW though, she managed to maintain a sense of unified purpose/activities for the entire 50 minutes, with this 'highly heterogeneous' group of so many kids! ALL of the kids clearly had fun/stuck out the entire 50-minute session, without exception, and that is quite something given they were all aged 5-7 years. 'Instructor SPH' clearly had dancing skills/qualifications, but I got the distinct impression that she also had some sort of ‘primary school-age teaching’ qualification (or maybe just lots of experience with young kids?). She certainly had a real knack for keeping a large and diverse bunch of very young kids focused on a common task, and that is a rare skill!The general/wider interior space of this dance studio is somewhat 'rustic around the edges' (which is entirely appropriate for an all-ages dance studio in Coburg in Melbourne, in my humble opinion), but the actual dance area/stage is huge/perfect, and the entire back wall of it is mirrors, in true 'dance studio' style...I can not comment on anything other than my young son’s sole/only experience at this place yesterday and what I saw on that day, but I can say that he thoroughly loved it, and all the other kids seemed to as well. This appeared to be because:a. The instructor was clearly highly skilled with young children. They seemed to listen to her and follow her instructions mainly because they LIKED her, not because they were anticipating reprimands etc.b. The dance-space/’stage’ is very large and lined lengthwise with mirrors, which young kids clearly find fascinating (it seems to help to keep them focused on the whole ‘dancing’ theme).

Unfortunately very poorly run and not very professional.I paid in advance for a full term for my 4 year old daughter. I did so by registering via their online booking system.The teacher changed 3 times throughout the term. We were never notified, until we turned up to the class each week.On two occassions we turned up to the class as per usual and the Dance Studio was locked. Noone was there. We phoned the venue and waited at least 30 minutes each time and noone showed up. One of those weeks another Mum turned up with her young kids and had had no notification of cancellation either. We found out at the class the following week that whoever was supposed to take the class was away or sick, and apparently they didn't have our details to contact us.... strange when we provided all those sorts of details when registering through their online booking system, which happily took our money.The dance studio itself is very dirty, doesn't look like it ever gets cleaned. It was also freezing inside, literally icy in winter.Ended up asking for a refund for the last few weeks of term as we we had basically had enough.

So bad it was heartbreaking.I travelled to Jamaica with Cat Pwiti of Jungle City Studios in Melbourne on the 2018 True Jamaican Dancehall Culture Tour. I paid $5250 for approximately 3 weeks.I wasn’t told that I would be expected to share a room and SHARE A BED with a stranger.I wasn’t told that the dance classes would be held predominately outdoors in full sun in 35°C plus heat, resulting in me battling heat exhaustion and verging on heat stroke daily.I wasn’t told anything about the changes to the itinerary while I was on tour. I had no idea where we were going or what we were doing or even the time we were leaving. I was constantly waiting, unable to do things like go and buy breakfast for fear of missing the groups departure.I didn’t expect to be told to sort out the accommodation issues myself.I didn’t expect to receive excuses like “I was busy organizing many other things” or “I forgot”.I didn’t expect to be slandered by the organiser in response to my raising these issues.I left Jamaica one week in and had to pay an additional $800 to change my flight. The experience I had was both disappointing and distressing. I was left out of pocket over $6000.I have fallen out of love with a dance style that has been my happy place for so long.

The main studio at Jungle City Studios was a perfect match for Hula Hoop Master classes. Really professional, efficient and friendly communication throughout the booking process and the space was great. Clean, spacious and well equipped. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the space to others and I'll be back :)

Jungle City Projects delivered Dance Workshops as part of our Children's Festival and they were outstanding. The instructors were well organised, their management of kids was perfect, and most of all their workshops were very engaging and thoroughly enjoyed by the kids. Highly recommend!