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‘If you can walk, you can dance’
(by Maggie Fazeli Fard - December 05, 2007)
It’s Friday night and I’m sitting alone in a dark parking lot. Fantastic, I think as I look around at the smattering of empty cars around me. The car is still running, I tell myself. I can easily drive back home, get into my warm bed and forget I ever came out here.
I peer up out of my front windshield. An upstairs light is on. They’re expecting me. Come on, I say out loud to no one. It’s not like they’re going to kill you up there. I turn off the car and brace myself against the wind howling outside. I’m not married, but I imagine this is what it feels like to have an affair. You know you’re someplace you shouldn’t be, someplace you don’t belong, but the enigmatic allure of something unknown, however dire the consequences, drives you forward.
I slowly approach the building, half-hoping the front door is locked; my decision would be made for me. It’s not. Bah. I trudge upstairs, grateful that at least it is warm inside, and come face to face with the door. “Fred Astaire Dance Studio,” a sign reads. I shudder and push through.
Now, before you think less of me, let me explain. I am not a dancer. I step on my partners’ toes and consistently slip on hardwood floors. I’ve honed myself into a master mingler, socializing my way out of dancing at proms, weddings, family reunions. And here I was, all alone on a Friday night at a dance studio.
“Hey! You made it!” Max Brazhko, a handsome competitive dancer and instructor, glides forward as he catches sight of me. He is one of Fred Astaire’s stars, tearing up competitions with his partner, Yulia Sorokina, since the young couple arrived in Westwood two years ago.
He shows me where I can hang up my coat, and leads me into the studio where eight men and women are milling around, sipping gin and tonics and munching from a cheese platter. I settle down at a small table covered with miniature gourds at odds with the holiday lights strung by the windows, discreetly eyeing the room for an emergency exit.
Suddenly, the music starts and a tall blond decked out in hot pink struts onto the floor. She is Renata Kucieba, the owner of the Westwood location of the Fred Astaire franchise and a dancer in her own right. She “discovered” Max and Yulia, Russian natives, in 2005 when she saw them compete. She sponsored the couple, offering them jobs as instructors and the opportunity to compete in the . Renata’s enthusiasm is contagious, and it doesn’t take long before students pile up onto the dance floor. I try to avoid eye contact, instead studying the dancers stenciled in black on the green-hued walls.
“What do you remember from yesterday?” Max is back and his right hand is in my face. “Not much,” I admit with a nervous laugh, trying not to trip as he leads me out onto the dance floor.
Just 30 hours earlier, Max had coaxed me into believing I could dance. We waltzed, tango-ed, fox trotted, cha-cha-ed and salsa-ed our way around the studio, Max telling me stories about his homeland while my eyes bored holes into his feet, counting the beats and trying to mirror his movements.
Friday night, I half-remembered his stories: He and Yulia, like all good Russian children, took dance lessons and competed from an early age. Yulia began ballroom at the age of 6, while Max started later, at 11, after a stint as a figure skater. They were from different areas of the country, but grew to recognize each other in competition. Both tried to quit ballroom – Max made three attempts in the very different world of ballet and Yulia explored her options at school, even coming to America as an exchange student in 2003 – but they couldn’t get ballroom out of their systems.
They teamed up four years ago and have since become regulars in the competitive circuit, competing every chance they get, usually monthly, and placing among the top couples each time. Most recently, they were semi-finalists at the U.S. DanceSport Championships in Florida in September and took second place at the Astaire National Challenge in Orlando in October and again at the Astaire Regional Challenge in
New York in November. Today, at the ages of 28 and 25, Max and Yulia say they are closer than ever to achieving their dreams, whatever they may be.
“We want to dance really well,” croaks Yulia, who is recovering from the after-effects of a flu shot.
“The dream is to be champions of the world,” Max quickly adds.
Still, their dedication to their profession, and to each other, is unwavering. “We’ve fallen in love with dancing,” admits Yulia.
I have a harder time remembering the dance steps. “What’s swing again?” I ask Max nervously. Slow, slow, rock step, slow, slow, rock step, slow… I repeat the steps to myself as I let him drag me across the floor.
In conversations with Max and Yulia, I learn I’m not their only nervous student.
“I had a lady, she was trying to get into the school for a few months,” says Max. “But she was nervous! She finally came and started taking lessons when no one was there. Then she started to open up, socializing.”
“You can start to dance at any age,” Yulia interrupts. “We have couples, families, lawyers, people who work on Wall Street–”
“On Wall Street,” says Max, “they’re sharks! But here, they’re nervous–”
“If you can walk,” adds Yulia, “you can dance. Anyone can learn to–”
“You just need to try it,” Max says, determined to get in the final word.
Fred Astaire’s students are a testament to Yulia and Max’s promise. One student, Jane, admits that she took up ballroom dancing as a way to relieve stress from a high-pressure job. She has taken lessons once every couple of weeks and tries to attend the studio’s bi-weekly Friday night dance parties. While it started off as a meditative hour, her worries dissipating into the dim amber light of the studio, it has evolved into a passion.
She has competed numerous times with Max in Pro-Am competitions, where professionals dance with their amateur students, and is currently working with him on a waltz-based choreographed routine. Will she perform it in competition? “When I feel stage-ready,” she laughs, a hint of nervousness in her voice.
Another student, Jerry, took up ballroom out of a pure love of dance. An elegant man in his 70s, he frequented other studios up to 15 miles away before finding Fred Astaire, only four miles from home, two years ago. Since then, he has taken double sessions as many as three times a week, and he is one of the strongest, and least self-conscious, dancers at the party. “My wife doesn’t dance – she says she can’t find the drum – so I come on my own,” he teases before Renata steps up to whisk him away for a tango. “I say, ‘Guys forget the gym. Come here. You’ll have a lot more fun.’”
And so, for two hours, I dance. Actually, I shuffle, trip and step on the toes of everyone I dance with. But I laugh too; in fact, it seems everyone is laughing.
“They’re steps you do everyday in your life,” Max says reassuringly as I pack up to leave. “You walk forward, you go back. It’s easy. You can do it.”
On Dec. 15, the Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Westwood will hold a student showcase, which is open to the public. On Feb. 11, 2008, Max Brazhko and Yulia Sorokina will perform with their students in a Pro-Am competition in Mahwah. For more information, visit www.fredastairewestwood.com or call 201-664-0800.
Maggie Fazeli Fard's e-mail address is fazelifard@northjersey.com
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