LesWatanabe.com is an independent reference to dance in the United States. It brings together open data from more than forty public sources — federal agencies, open encyclopedias, music databases, libraries and community maps — and turns them into pages people can actually use: what a ballet term means, which studios teach salsa in your city, what dancers earn in your state, how fast a song is and which dance fits it.
What you will find here
- In-house guides to more than 50 dance styles, with history, technique, tempo and FAQs.
- Ballet, partner-dance and square-dance terminology.
- Choreographers, dancers, ballets and Broadway choreography awards.
- Dance studios, dance companies and nonprofits, and colleges with dance programs — by state and city.
- Wage data for dancers, choreographers and dance teachers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
- A BPM finder that matches thousands of songs to the dances they fit.
- Calculators and tools: calories burned, tap tempo, MPM ↔ BPM.
About the domain
From the early 2000s until about 2019, LesWatanabe.com was the website of Les Watanabe, a dancer, choreographer, dance educator and dance videographer based in Portland, Oregon (CineDance Productions). This site is not affiliated with Les Watanabe and is not written by him. We kept the domain's long connection to dance by turning it into a free reference for dancers, teachers, students and families. If you are Les Watanabe or represent him and would like this note changed, please contact us.
How the site is built
Every page is generated from data files that we refresh regularly. Each data-driven page shows its sources and their licenses; see Sources & licenses and our editorial policy.