There are people’s fates, which, like a documentary newsreel, reflect the events of an entire era.
JANNA AND VLADIMIR CHALKEVITCH are contemporaries, witnesses, participants and creators of the era – the era of formation and development of ballroom dancing in Belarus.
The history of ballroom choreography in Belarus goes back to the far 1965, when Max Samuilovich Kats and Lidia Petrovna Lazareva opened the first unique School of Ballroom Dancing in the Palace of Culture of the Tractor Plant in Minsk.
Here, in 1966, her father brought Janna from a small Ukrainian town to study at the institute, and to fill her free time from lectures, bought her a season ticket to the School of Dance. Very soon, Max Samuilovich Katz took Janna to assist him in his classes. It was so exciting, exciting and interesting, it was a life and creative university from the Master. Janna took notes of each lesson, recorded the Master’s explanations, his clear, accurate and lucid explanations. For all his students, Max Samuilovich was a master, an aristocrat and aesthete. Even in class, everyone wanted to come dressed nicely, to be like their teacher.
Here, on the parquet of the School, Janna and Vladimir Chalkevitch, who at the time was dancing with Lidia Petrovna Lazareva, met. They were favorites of the School and the Max Katz Studio. After a while, Janna and Vladimir became a married and new dance couple.
At the instruction of M.S. Katz, in her 3rd year at the Belarusian Polytechnic Institute, Janna began to teach ballroom dancing at the institute using the method of her Teacher. The success was tremendous. The Student Union Committee helped and supported this endeavor in every possible way.
With great efforts of Max Samuilovich Katz and Lidia Petrovna Lazareva similar groups were created in other higher educational institutions, Houses and Palaces of Culture of the capital. The School of Katz and Lazareva became the ancestor of new generations of ballroom dancers in Belarus.
In 1972 the First All-Union Competition of Ballroom Dancing was announced and again in preparation for this extraordinary and innovative event, M.S. Katz and L.P. Lazareva increased their efforts to popularize ballroom dancing throughout the Republic.
These efforts made it possible to hold the First Republican Contest of Ballroom Dance Performers. Some documents of that time have been preserved in the archives of Janna and Vladimir.
Note that at that time there was no dance sport, so there were no words “championship” and dancers were not called “champions”. Today’s generation of dance athletes have no idea that there was a period in the history of ballroom dancing, which evolved into a dance sport – as much as 30 years. So in those days, participants in addition to the traditional international program, danced national ballroom dancing, or the Soviet program, which existed until the 80-ies. Ballroom dancing of those times belonged to the sphere of culture and were supervised by the Ministry of Culture of the BSSR, republican, regional and city houses of creativity and amateur art.
New Soviet ballroom dances were being created. For interest, here are some of them: “Sudarushka”, “Russian Lyric”, “Polka Janka”, “Rilio” (Lithuanian dance), “Joksu-polka” (Estonian dance), “Varu-Varu” (Latvian dance) , “Allow me to invite” and many others.
With great appreciation and respect it should be noted that the real Encyclopaedia of these dances even in our time is Lidija Petrovna Kats-Lazareva, who knows about 260 dances and now successfully uses them in her dancing and mega-popular club “Mara” for more then 57th year already.
Going back to 1972, according to the results of the first Republican competition 4 couples represented Belarus in the 1st All-Union competition, among them were Janna and Vladimir Chalkevitch, who presented a new ballroom dance “Belarusian Polka”, Choreographer Gennadiy Mikhajlovich Trubkin, received the incentive prize and for the competition program, in which the dancers danced International program, and instead of Jive performed Polka, Janna and Vladimir Chalkevitch received 1st Degree Diplomas.
The 1st All-Union competition was a large-scale event and was widely covered in the press and television. It was held in Moscow, in the CSKA Sports Palace (Ice Arena) and was attended by 180 couples from all over the Soviet Union. The importance of this competition was emphasized by its founders: the USSR Ministry of Culture, the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, the Central Committee of Komsomol, the Committee of Radio Broadcasting and Television.
This event stirred up the whole country, including Belarus. The flow of people to ballroom dancing schools began to increase en masse.
Upon their return from Moscow, Janna and Vladimir were approached by the trade union committee of “Integral”, where they had worked after graduation, to organize a ballroom dancing group for the employees of the Minsk Industrial Association “Integral”.
From 1972 to 1975, Janna and Vladimir received great popularity and recognition, and the yellowed photographs in the newspapers of that time are a reminder that the enthusiasm, faith and responsibility for ballroom dancing, received from the great mentors and teachers M.S. Katz and L.P. Lazareva – bring their results.
At the Industrial-Technical Association “Integral” Janna and Vladimir created a ballroom dance group, which included the young employees of the association. Some success was achieved, they even held a contest for the prize of “INTEGRAL”. But the youth group did not prove to be long-lasting: someone left to study, someone was drafted into the army, someone got married, or life overwhelmed them… And then came the idea of creating a children’s group.
Since 1973 preparations were under way to recruit children from the neighborhood “Kurasovschina”, where the association “INTEGRAL” was located. The union’s trade union helped a lot, rented a room to work with children. Janna and Vladimir began their work with 6-year-old children, which was a real event in the life of the new microdistrict, and the classes were free of charge for the children.
Vladimir at the same time continued to work as the head of the output section of the secret products (he was the best engineer in the electronics industry), helping Janna with the evening schedule. The team was growing and achieving new successes. Janna and Vladimir combined work in the collective with performances at competitions, festivals, demonstrative performances.
In 1975 the 2nd All-Union Competition of Ballroom Dancing Performers was held. In preparation for this event a national contest of ballroom dancers was held in Minsk. There Janna and Vladimir received diplomas of laureates and a special prize from the newspaper “The Yunost’s Banner” – THE MOST APPRECIATE couple.
In the history of the Soviet Union were only 2 official All-Union competitions and the Chalkevitch were their participants and 1st degree diplomats, and also Janna and Vladimir were awarded a Special Prize of Trade Unions of Ukraine at the 2nd All-Union Competition “For Success in Work and Art”.
2nd All-Union Competition was held in Kiev, at the Palace of Sports from 31 May to 3 June 1975. The chairman of the Jury on this competition was the People’s Artist of the Soviet Union, the Laureate of the State Prize Konstantin Sergeyev. The program also consisted of the international and Soviet programs. The 1st Degree Diplomas were a well-deserved reward for the Belarusian couple and the Special Prize for Janna and Vladimir Chalkevitch was definitely a recognition of their creativity.
It was a time of confluence of conflicting trends in ballroom choreography and the establishment of the competition program as the highest form of dance. Note that a professional judging system had not yet been formed in those years.
After returning from Kiev, Janna and Vladimir plunged into the preparation and formation of their team. Children dance was an innovative thing, fortunately, this practice was adopted after some time by other clubs in Minsk – it was the beginning of development of children dancing in Belarus. And now the collective of Janna and Vladimir Chalkevitch had their own name: “SMILE”.
In the 80’s the popularity of “SMILE” was going off scale in Minsk, the club was growing quantitatively and qualitatively.
Milestones of success of dance club “Smile”:
1980 – the title of “A model children’s ensemble”.
1981 – LAURÉAT OF THE CITY CROSS “MINSKIY ZORKI – 81”.
1982 – LAURÉAT OF THE CITY CROSS “MINSKY ZORORKI – 82”.
1983 – 2nd degree Diploma at the VII MASTERS CROSS COMPETITION.
1984 – “LAURÉAT OF THE REPUBLICAN TELEVISION COURSE OF CHILDREN’S COLLECTIVES”.
1985 – Diploma of the All-Union organizing committee for participation in the festival of independent artistic creation on the 40th anniversary of the Great Victory
1986 – Laureat of the Premium of Lenin’s Komsomol of the Republic of Belarus.
As a reward and gratitude to their members Janna and Vladimir Chalkevitch bought a comfortable (for those times) bus to travel around the country and abroad with concerts, participation in competitions and training camps in Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany.
A professional ballroom-dance orchestra was created for the members of “Smile” to be educated by live music. Especially for the group was written music by the Belarussian composer Valery Ivanov.
The biggest award for the participants was a trip to Moscow to the New Year’s Eve at the Kremlin Palace of Congresses and Luzhniki.
In addition to intense creative work with the team Janna and Vladimir continued to participate in the development of new trends in ballroom dance, in improving the methods of teaching competitive dance and now “SMILE” becomes a real laboratory of innovation, which attracts groups from different parts of the country and abroad, from Nadym to Tomsk, Poland and the Czech Republic.
In 1986 Max Samuilovich Katz, the Great Teacher, Maestro and the founder of ballroom choreography in Belarus, passed away… He never claimed any awards, though he was worthy of many awards. The development of ballroom dancing in Belarus was not smooth, not only because of the relationship with the officials, but also because of other choreographic trends and even colleagues. And M. S. Kats and L. P. Lazareva had to go through all that.
The formation of ballroom dancing in Belarus, as well as in the whole world, is a multifaceted process involving children and adults, enthusiastic amateurs, parents of dancers, admirers from all walks of life, public and state cultural institutions.
It was time to gradate Amateur and Professional dance, as the level of performance has grown tremendously and the demand for professional teachers was undeniable.
In the 90’s for the first time was taken up by famous dancer Vasiliy Lyashenko. He approached Vladimir Chalkevitch with the idea to create the Belarusian Professional Union. In a combination of the enthusiasm of youth and wisdom of maturity the BELORUSSIAN PROFESSIONAL DANCE UNION (BPDU) was created, whose main line was to increase the level of professional training of Belarusian ballroom dance teachers. “Smile” by that time had received the status of a club and was the base for all events of the BPDU.
Thanks to the efforts and contacts of Vasily and Elena Lyashenko the basic courses were organized after which Vasily found an opportunity to communicate with the British Association of Dance Teachers, the most prestigious professional organization which is more than 100 years old. With the support of the club “SMILE” the possibility to invite the examiner of the British Association of Teachers of Dance to prepare the teachers for the exams of the BRITISH ASSOCIATION was found and the President of BATD himself came to Minsk with his wife to take the exams.
The Belarusian Professional Dance Union, led by the President Vasily Lyashenko, the Vice-President Vladimir Chalkevitch became the only source of knowledge, skills and experience in the profession of a ballroom dance instructor in Belarus. Janna was the secretary of the British Association in Belarus.
Combining this diverse work in the ballroom dance industry, Janna and Vladimir Chalkevitch continued the fruitful work in “Smile” which will be 50 years old in 2023 / 2024.
