Robin Goldmann

Stefani dissects the small betrayals in body action that cost marks in Cha Cha and Samba, teaching you to audit your own alignment before a coach steps in. Her sessions demand that you treat every drill as a measurement, not a warm-up, so the work compounds across the two days. Returning dancers often joke that she stores their mistakes like a ledger, greeting them with the exact correction they left with last year. You will gain a repeatable checklist for hip action and ribcage placement that holds up when the music speeds up.

Julie reads floorcraft and musicality as a single language, showing you how frame and foot speed must negotiate the same beat without choking each other. Having worked across too many training halls to count, she brings a diagnostic eye for why a routine that functions in rehearsal can flatten under different floor conditions. Students often mention the way she taps the downbeat with one hand and the body action rhythm with the other until the two finally meet in your spine. You will leave with a clearer sense of how to let the music drive the work rather than decorating the steps after the fact.

Dobrina trains you to think like the panel thinks, translating the adjudicator's sightline into a to-do list for your hips, feet, and frame. She is ruthless about the first four bars of any routine, insisting that if your Cuban Motion does not read from the back row, the detail inside the choreography is wasted energy. Dancers often recall the moment she makes them watch a replay of their own practice from the adjudicators' approximate angle, noting what actually registered. You will gain a ranked set of priorities so your technical work converts into visible marks rather than private effort.

• Instagram — Dobrina Parichkova