About Arthur Murray Dance Studio

What services does your business offer and what makes your business stand out from the competition?

We offer all kinds of ballroom dancing and couple's dancing. Whether it’s Latin dances, Swing dances, traditional ballroom dances or wedding choreography - we teach it all! All of our instructors are full time, certified, highly qualified instructors that get trained constantly on how to improve their dancing, teaching and customer service.

Arthur Murray is the oldest and biggest private dance organization in the world! We have perfected, refined and improved our teaching methods and syllabus for over 100 years and pride ourselves in the highest level of instruction. Our students love us and their constant support is the main reason why we have been teaching ballroom dancing in Santa Barbara since 1948 - longer than any other dance studio in town!

What was the inspiration to start or run this business?

We love changing people’s life through dancing! We both worked for Arthur Murray studios for many years before and there is nothing else we would rather do. Kristen is born and raised in Santa Barbara and we have always loved the city and its community. So when the possibility arose to take over the proud legacy of the Arthur Murray dance studio in Santa Barbara we knew that this was the perfect opportunity.

What do you love most about your job?

We love seeing people walk out with a smile on their face! So many times people come in and think that they could never learn to ballroom dance but have a dream of what it would feel like if they did. We love showing everyone how much they are capable of and how much fun they can have learning how to dance - whether it’s to improve a date night, lose weight or live out a life-long dream of performing an exhilarating dance routine in front of a captivated audience.

What is the best reaction you've ever gotten from a customer?

We have a couple that came in for their wedding dance and stayed because they fell in love with dancing. Once they told us that ballroom dancing with Arthur Murray has changed their lives and personalities. They grew up in an environment where accomplishments were taken for granted and after learning here they said, “Everyone here is so supportive and positive! After we started coming here we noticed that when we would talk to other people outside of the studio we would be encouraging and positive to them too. Arthur Murray has showed us how wonderful it feels to have a supportive community that constantly encourages you and makes you feel loved. And it helped us pass this on to other people."