Hutke Dance Studio
C, 14, Madhu Vihar Rd, near Geetanjali Salon, Madhu Vihar, I.P.Extension, Patparganj, New Delhi, Delhi, 110092, India
Hutke Dance Studio
Step across the threshold of Hutke Dance Studio and the first thing that meets you is the swing of warm cedar boards beneath your feet and the low murmur of a kick-drum booming softly from the next room. The space began in 2012 when former concert-dancer and multi-instrumentalist Marta “Mars” Hutkiewicz gut-rehabbed an old textile warehouse a block off downtown Oakland’s waterfront. She kept the bow-truss ceiling, sanded the maple beams, and installed a floating floor that hums like a muted bass when you jump—perfect for tap and body-percussion classes that often tumble into improvised jam sessions around 9 p.m.
Every wall is draped in rotating murals commissioned from local visual artists, so one month a horn section lifts its brass arms over the barres, the next month a field of bright calla lilies seems to bend in tempo with Afro-Haitian drums. Track lights pick out deep blues and copper shadows, turning the studio into a night-jazz record sleeve come to life. Over in the corner sits Marta’s upright piano, lid propped open so students can drop in Ellington voicings between pirouettes.
The sound palette is rooted in Black American traditions—swing, funk, second-line—but Hutke refuses to stay in one pocket. On Tuesdays you’ll find a nine-piece horn band rehearsing New-Orleans-style street beats, horns threading through open windows to mingle with auto traffic. Wednesdays shift to low-lit neo-soul and neo-bebop fusion, the drummer swapping sticks for brushes before seguing into a cumbia backbeat when the conga player arrives early. The Friday open level, nicknamed “Sweat & Stories,” is equal parts dance class and living-room hangout; an electric bassist lays down a looping Juno-bass groove while participants trade eight-bar vocal improvisations on themes the crowd calls out—coffee, rent checks, late-night tacos, whatever makes the room laugh.
Every quarter Mars curates a 48-hour composition residency: choreographers and instrumentalists lock in together overnight, emerging on Sunday evening with a raw twenty-minute suite premiered for whoever wanders in ($5–$20 sliding scale). Recent collaborations have paired tap feet with modular synth bleeps, and flamenco palmas with MPC-triggered Memphis samples. If you’re just visiting, drop by fifteen minutes before any session starts—guests are waved in to stretch, warm up on cajón or ukulele, or simply sit cross-legged on the sprung floor and feel the floor-melted thump travel up the spine like a private metronome.
The communal kitchenette keeps a kettle whistling and a shelf of mismatched mugs; tip jars are labeled “strings,” “reeds,” and “laces.” At the end of the night, chairs get stacked, lights dim, and the birch-veneer sub woofer exhales its last sub-bass sigh, sounding for all the world like the studio itself has begun to dream in six-eight time.
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- Published: August 15, 2025
