Max Samuilovich was born on September 30, 1919, into a family of professional dance teachers in the city of Vilna (now Vilnius). Max Samuilovich inherited his creative genes. His grandparents, parents and brothers danced beautifully in their family. His family spent most of their lives in France and Poland. They were forced to return to Russia only in the early 20s. For some time they lived in Rostov, and then moved to Taganrog.
From 1941 to 1945 Max Samuilovich served in the army (as an interpreter at Marshal Zhukov’s headquarters). Until 1951 he stayed in Germany as a member of the Soviet troops. During this period, Max Samuilovich was interested in the German dance school, attended the Dresden ballroom dance studio.
His second passion in life was playing soccer (football). He played in the army team of the Soviet grouping of troops in Germany, which was patronized by Vasily Stalin. Max Samuilovich was friends with the famous football players Bobrov and Nikolayev. Both these passions of football and ballroom dancing were always present in his life.
In 1951, after demobilization from the army, Max Samuilovich returned to Taganrog, where he devoted his life to teaching dance to young and not so young people. At this time he studied a lot, including in Moscow. In Taganrog he organizes lectures and seminars on the culture of dance, festivals and ballroom dancing competitions.
In 1964 the first All-Russian Festival of Artistic Creation was held where for the first time the ten best couples of Russia in ballroom dancing were determined. Max Samuilovich Katz played a major role in this. In 1964, he and his students attended the “Amber Couple” – at that time one of the leading competitions in the Soviet Union. Athletes from abroad came to the “Amber Couple” and the Lithuanian school was considered the leading Soviet school in the field of professional ballroom dancing.
In 1965, it was decided to move to Minsk, closer to the dance center of the Soviet Union. Lidia Petrovna Kats-Lazareva moves first, and half a year later Max Samuilovich.
On September 1, 1965 in the new Palace of Culture of Tractor Works they opened the first ballroom dancing school in our country.
In parallel with the work in the palace of culture Max Samuilovich conducted a lot of work on the introduction of dance culture in schools, dance schools, institutes. He actively cooperates with state bodies and institutions and thanks to his efforts a ballroom dancing course was opened at the Institute for Advanced Training of Choreographic Staff.
At the end of the sixties, the first schoolchildren of Max Samuilovich start working in the city of Minsk and other cities of Belarus, i.e. the network of dancing schools is formed and expands. Ballroom dancing schools appeared in the Palace of Culture of trade unions and in the Palace of the worsted textile plant.
Thanks to the active promotional activities of Max Samuilovich, including among government officials, ballroom couples are allowed to participate in folk art festivals. Max Samuilovich, being a charming and communicative person, was able to convince anyone that it is a very beautiful kind of art that educates people. He managed to maintain good relations not only with Nikolai Slyunkov, director of the tractor plant, but even with Pyotr Mironovich Masherov, to whom he managed to break through thanks to a chance meeting in a store and despite the active resistance of the guards.
At that time, ballroom dancing in our country was cultivated only in the form of the European and Soviet program, which included rilio, sudarushka, Russian lyrical, waltz gavotte, krakowiak. It was not until the beginning of the 70’s that the first Latin American dances appeared. These were cha-cha-cha and rumba.
Max Samuilovich devoted much attention to promoting ballroom dancing in the media. During his lifetime, on Belarusian television there was a program “Dance Hall”, where he together with Lidia Petrovna Kats-Lazareva taught the audience to dance. Similar programs he hosted in Moscow and in Russia.
From the 70s all mass Soviet holidays could not do without ballroom dancers, which shows the growing popularity of ballroom dancing as a result of the efforts that Max Samuilovich made to popularize this art form. Ballroom dance lessons were introduced in choreographic schools, cultural and educational colleges, and Suvorov colleges. The course of ballroom dancing began to be taught at the Institute of Professional Development of Teachers. Since 1982 the well-known Belarusian ballroom dancing competition “Spring rhythms” was held – now, unfortunately, it is forgotten.
A whole galaxy of Max Samuilovich’s students, namely: Nadezhda and Mikhail Biruny, Tatiana and Mikhail Pavlinovs, Irina and Vladimir Parakhnevich, Natalia and Boris Popovs, Eugenia and Leonid Aplevich, Eugene Lemberg and Raisa Chekhova, Elena and Vasily Lyashenko, Elena and Yuri Tsarevs, Zhanna and Vladimir Shalkevich, Vladimir Shapovalov, Elena Titko, Valentina Grabitskaya, Igor Kulikovsky, Marina Zavyalkova, Normund Lachauniek, Efim Polonetsky, Viktor Yasel, Galina Selevich and many others continued his work, opening their own schools and clubs. Many of them even today successfully train at home and abroad (USA, Canada, Israel, Europe).
Friends and acquaintances remember Max as an extremely active, creative person, soaking up everything that was going on around him like a sponge. Even his outward appearance: a bright jacket, beret and bow tie emphasized these features of his character. At the same time Max Samuilovich could easily find common language with a janitor and a high-ranking official. In 1986, Max Samuilovich Katz passed away, but his work continues to live today.
Undoubtedly, Max Samuilovich Katz would have been happy to see his life’s work develop and to see the huge army of his students and followers bring the beautiful art of ballroom dancing into the life of our country.
