On Thursday evenings, the second-floor studio above Main Street Bakery fills with the percussive stamp of clogging shoes. This is the Brickerville Dance Collective—one of three local studios where traditional dance forms are taught not as museum pieces but as living practice.
For decades, Brickerville's folk dance scene operated quietly, sustained by tight-knit families and community hall gatherings. In recent years, a modest revival has taken hold. Newcomers and lifelong residents alike are showing up to learn dances tied to the region's Appalachian, Eastern European, and Mexican heritage. The following three studios each approach that mission differently. All welcome beginners, and all offer something you won't find anywhere else in town.
The Brickerville Dance Collective: Community First
Location: Second floor, 142 Main Street (above Main Street Bakery) Founded: 2008 Best for: All ages and skill levels; families
The Collective is the most visible of the three, and for good reason. Founder and director Tommy Reyes, a former professional square dance caller from Asheville, North Carolina, built the studio around the idea that folk dance should be social first and technical second.
Classes run Tuesday and Thursday evenings, 6:30–8:00 p.m. A typical session starts with Appalachian flatfooting and clogging fundamentals, then shifts into group square dance sets with live fiddle or banjo accompaniment. On the first Friday of each month, the Collective clears the floor for a community dance open to the public; admission is $5, and no partner or experience is required.
Drop-in classes cost $18; monthly memberships are $65. The Collective also runs a free after-school program for teens on Wednesdays, funded in part by a regional arts grant.
Heritage Dance Studio: Preserving Immigrant Traditions
Location: Converted 1920s schoolhouse, 847 Oak Ridge Road Founded: 2015 Best for: Dancers interested in Eastern European repertoire; families with young children
Maria Kowalski, a third-generation Polish-American dancer who trained with the Polish Folk Dance Association of America, opened Heritage Dance Studio after moving to Brickerville in 2013. The studio's oak-floored main room still has the original schoolhouse chalkboards, now covered with maps showing the regions of Poland, Ukraine, and Slovakia whose dances make up the core curriculum.
Kowalski teaches the krakowiak, kujawiak, and oberek in structured ten-week sessions, with an emphasis on footwork precision and costume history. Students who complete two sessions are eligible to join the studio's performing ensemble, which appears at the Brickerville Harvest Festival and the annual Slavic Heritage Fair in Pittsburgh.
Group classes run $15 per session; children under 12 attend free on Saturday mornings. Kowalski also offers private instruction for wedding couples seeking traditional Polish wesele dances.
Folkloric Arts Center: Deep Dives for Serious Learners
Location: 203 Mill Creek Drive (industrial district, behind the old textile mill) Founded: 2019 Best for: Intermediate to advanced dancers; researchers; teachers
The Folkloric Arts Center is the hardest to find and the most specialized. Co-directors Dr. Elena Vásquez, an ethnochoreologist formerly with the University of Texas at Austin, and James Okonkwo, a Nigerian-born dance historian, designed the center as a hybrid space: part training ground, part research archive.
The center does not hold ongoing beginner classes. Instead, it offers intensive weekend workshops and a six-week summer seminar on topics such as son jarocho footwork from Veracruz, the structural evolution of Appalachian longways dances, or Yoruba movement systems in the Americas. Past guest instructors have included Felipe García, a fandango master from Veracruz, and Dr. Susan Eike Spalding, author of Appalachian Dance: Creativity and Continuity.
Workshop fees range from $75 to $250 depending on length and instructor. The center's small library—open to the public by appointment—holds field recordings, out-of-print dance notation manuals, and oral history transcripts from Brickerville's immigrant communities.
What to Know Before You Go
All three studios operate on different schedules and serve different goals, but they share one trait: none require prior experience for their entry-level offerings. If you're unsure where to start, the Collective's monthly community dance is the lowest-stakes entry point. If you want structured instruction with a clear cultural lineage, Heritage Dance Studio's ten-week sessions are the most systematic. If you already have a movement background and want to study with specialists, the Folkloric Arts Center's workshop calendar is worth watching.
Practical details matter, so here they are at a glance:
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