The history of our club dates back to 1970, when we, Boris and Natalia Popov, taught ballroom dancing classes at the Trade Union Culture Palace, and then at various venues under the auspices of the Republican House of Amateur Art. Then our team studied at the Teacher’s House from 1977 to 2000 until its disbandment, and from 2001 to 2018 at the Republican Trade Union Culture Palace, where it was named “Nika”.
Our main professions were not related to choreography: Boris is a physicist, candidate of technical sciences, Natalya is a philologist, candidate of philological sciences. We started as amateur dancers in the ballroom dance circle of the Palace of Culture of Trade Unions of Semyon Samoylovich Pozin, and since 1967 we continued to study at the Palace of Culture of the Tractor Plant in a ballroom dance group known in Belarus and beyond, which later became known as the Mara club. The leaders of this group were M.S. Katz and L.P. Lazareva. We began participating in competitions at the end of 1970.
In our dancing career, there were prizes in republican and international competitions, we are diploma winners of the 1st and 2nd All-Union competitions of ballroom dancers in 1972 and 1975, laureates of the 1st All-Union festival of amateur creativity of workers in 1975-1977. We still keep the starting books, which at that time were kept by the dancers themselves, since there was no public organization uniting the dancers of Belarus. According to the standards that were unofficially accepted in the dance environment, they scored enough points to be considered international-class dancers.
In 1983, we finished our dancing careers and focused on coaching. Our students, members of the Nika club, were people of different ages and professions. Some of them also became quite famous dancers, and then coaches – these are Alexander Panasik, Ekaterina Popova, Evgeny and Daria Yarmoshko, Artur Zorin and Roman Usmanov started dancing in the Nika club.
In addition to working with individual performers, the Teacher’s House Ballroom Dance Ensemble was created at the club in the late 80s, which was awarded city and republican level diplomas. The club organized concerts with the help of students, and city-level tournaments were held. As teachers, we completed a training course at the Republican House of Amateur Art of the Belarusian Trade Union in 1975 to become a ballroom dance club leader, and in 2001 and 2002 we improved our skills at a seminar for trainers and judges of the Belarusian Dance Sport Federation.
Our club has produced the Champions of the Republic of Belarus in the senior group in European dances Viktor Kristofik and Tatyana Kupreeva, and the winners of many Championships of the Republic of Belarus Alexander Panasik and Ekaterina Popova. There were also those who achieved success outside Belarus: for example, our student Alexander Itkin became the US Champion in the Pro-Am category, our club’s pupil, our daughter Ekaterina Popova, together with Vladislav Shakhov, became the 2015 US Champion in the Rising Stars category, the winner of the UK Championship in 2016, and the Champion of the Blackpool Ballroom Dancing Festival, also in the Rising Stars category.
As for the development of ballroom choreography in our country, we can only express regret about the disunity of our clubs and those federations that appeared after the collapse of the Belarusian Federation of Dance Sport (BFTS). In our opinion, it is possible to return the former popularity of ballroom dancing, Championships and Championships for which even in adult groups once began with quarterfinals, only if all interested parties are united into one powerful organization, as BFTS was in its time. This will significantly increase the resources that could be directed to the further development of ballroom choreography in our country.
