Dancing Out of Darkness

by Kristina Rhianoff

  Does this sound like a lot of responsibility? I think nowadays it probably sounds crazy, a twenty-something with no qualifications and fresh out of school herself in charge of a dance school. But I was so grateful to Olga and Igor for everything they had done for me that it was a very natural course of action. Igor gave me my first teaching experience when I was just fourteen – that was a massive opportunity and one I will always be thankful for. He and Olga were always there for me; I’m sure they must have figured out my home life wasn’t much fun and so they took me under their wing. It wouldn’t have taken much figuring out – when all the other dancers had their parents come and watch them in competitions and cheer them on, I had no one in the audience. So they made an extra effort to support me and they focused my passion for dancing. There was a huge level of trust as well, as they could see that I really loved teaching the younger ones even though I wasn’t much more than a child myself. So they encouraged it.

  Of course my love for competing never went away. No matter how much responsibility I had for the school, I suppose I knew that I wasn’t done with competing just yet. It is a belief of mine that sometimes you have to be brave enough to take an opportunity when it comes up and it wasn’t long before I had the chance to make a life-altering decision.

  CHAPTER 9

  A boy called Brian…

  Despite his bullying ways, I did get the chance to take part in a lot of competitions with Eugene while dancing in Nakhodka. Eugene’s mum took us to compete in Japan and we always visited one particular school when we were there for our shows. I remember one teacher, Mr Kobaici, who would watch us and was always very encouraging. After leaving Nakhodka and having made the decision to put my competing days behind me, I didn’t think much more about him, so it was nice to bump into him when he travelled to Vladivostok to the big dance competition that is always held there every year in July. I was there with some of the students from my school and I knew he always brought some of his better pupils from Japan to compete, as Vladivostok was by then an open city so there was the opportunity for lots of different nationalities to enter.

  Mr Kobaici spoke a bit of broken Russian as he was always working with Russian dancers but he had travelled over with a translator too, and when he saw me, he came over right away. With his translator’s help, he told me he thought it was a shame I wasn’t competing any more and that I had let the teaching take over.

  ‘Remember Julia?’ he said.

  Julia was a girl whom I known since I was little and had danced with from a young age. She was originally from St Petersburg and her mum was a dance teacher as well. I knew that her mum and Eugene’s mum were friends and Julia was invited to come to the dance school in Nakhodka too, where she competed and was very good. But she didn’t like being away from home and went back to be with her parents in St Petersburg. As far as I was aware, that was what she had last been doing, but I was wrong.

  ‘Julia is an American champion,’ he told me. ‘She moved to America and married her dance partner and now they are the champions in a Latin category called American Rhythm.’

  I was absolutely stunned. Until then I had no idea how well she had done for herself and I was thrilled for her. She and her partner, Bob Powers, were very successful and Mr Kobaici told me he was going to America shortly to watch her perform in one of the big competitions held in Miami called the Nationals.

  ‘Do you want to write to her?’ he asked me. ‘I will make sure she gets it if you do.’

  So I wrote her a letter, which basically said:

  Hi Julia, do you remember me? This is mad! I am so very happy for you as you always wanted to compete and be successful. If there is anything ever that comes up that you think I could do as a job let me know as I know you travel a lot and compete and know a lot of people. Thanks, Kristina

  I had nothing to lose in writing that letter and I didn’t think for one second I would get an answer. That was in July 2000 and I knew that the Nationals were always held in the first week in September. At the end of September I got a letter from Julia:

  Hi Kristina! Yes, I live in Arizona with my husband, Bob, now. We met in St Petersburg as he had come over to do a show with some other American dancers and we had a try-out and things just went from there. I then moved to the States and I have been here for the past six years. In answer to your question, I don’t know anyone who is looking for a partner but if I do, I will let you know. Would you be interested in teaching? There are a lot of Russians over here now since the Soviet Union broke up and there are lots of Russian dance schools looking for teachers. Do let me know. Julia

  I wrote back and said of course I would be interested and it would be great if she could keep me in mind; I put the telephone number of my flat at the bottom. Then in October I got a phone call from her, although it took me a while to work out who it was – she now had a thick American accent. She told me about a dance studio in New York that was looking for teachers and asked if I would be interested in going. There were lots of Russian kids in New York who needed a Russian teacher but there would be no opportunity to compete or dance myself, it would just be a teaching position. She would put me in touch with the owners of the school who were very nice and encouraging and had said they would arrange a visa for me if I was going to accept the position.

  I told her I wanted to think about it and although I was interested, at the same time it was so scary, the thought of moving to America and leaving my mum and all my friends behind. And I couldn’t speak more than a few words of English. Maybe someone else would have jumped at the chance, but I was already teaching and besides, I had so much loyalty to my dance school and Igor. I didn’t want to give them up for just another teaching position. Yes, I suppose this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity but my dream wasn’t just to move to America. My dream was dancing and it didn’t matter which country it took me to.

  So I said no. I told the New York dance school that I would like to compete as well as teach and I didn’t want to leave the school I was teaching at. And, if I’m being honest, I didn’t want to leave my mum either. She was very encouraging and I know if I had decided to move then she would have supported me. But I think she was glad that I decided not to go – she had been fussing about the fact that I wouldn’t know anyone, I didn’t speak English and I would be on my own.

  I did write to Julia to explain why I had turned the job down and, to be honest, I then put any thoughts of going to America to compete out of my mind. So it was a complete surprise to get a phone call from her in November with some exciting news. She explained that she had been teaching a boy from Seattle who had an older partner who didn’t want to carry on competing any more. His name was Brian, he was twenty-four years old and he was ‘the loveliest boy ever,’ she said. She also said he was very committed to dancing but was adamant that he only wanted to dance with a Russian girl as he thought that was the only way he would be able to win any competitions! It wasn’t surprising though, she added, as he had always been taught by her and her husband Bob and had seen how successful they were. In his mind, she said, he obviously thought this was the way to win – to get a Russian partner!

  The other bit of news was that Brian’s dance school in Seattle was also looking for a teacher so I would be able to do a little bit of teaching as well as competing. It sounded too good to be true, but there was no way I could move to America to dance with a boy I hadn’t even met, let alone danced with.

  So I asked Julia: ‘What if Brian doesn’t like me? What if I don’t like him? What if we don’t click as a dance couple?’ It all seemed too much of a big risk.

  So Julia suggested we do what is called a ‘try-out’, which is a very common thing in this business. Normally, you would have a teacher recommend a pairing and you would put a few routines together to see if you had the potential to work as the perfect dance couple.

  ‘Of course I would love to meet him for a try-out,’ I told Julia, ‘but I don’t have the finances to travel to America and I don�
��t have a visa either – and probably wouldn’t get one on the basis that I was just travelling to America to try and see if I was suitable to dance with an American boy.’

  Julia understood and so she decided to talk to Brian to see what he wanted to do. But Brian was so completely adamant that he would only dance with a Russian girl that he told her he would happily travel to Russia to meet me. It was unbelievable really, but he was very focused on what he wanted. With help from his family, in January 2001 I found myself waiting at the airport to meet what might be my new dance partner.

  *****

  We were in the midst of an extremely harsh winter and January that year was bitterly cold. As I didn’t speak any English, I invited one of my friends who studied English in college to come with me to the airport to be my translator. And I had my mum with us, too.

  I remember spotting Brian and just thinking, ‘Oh. My. God!’ – for no reason other than that this poor boy had just wandered out of the airport in the thinnest Nike coat I have ever seen and was desperately trying not to look like he was frozen in our -20 degrees climate. We hurried him into the car and he was absolutely freezing. It took him a while to stop shivering and he said he couldn’t believe the amount of ice and snow everywhere.

  Once he felt warm enough to start talking, he told my friend that he hadn’t quite realised where he was going in Russia when he agreed to a try-out after Julia asked him. He had assumed I was from St Petersburg, where Julia is from, in the more central part of Russia. Then he realised I was in Vladivostok and he said he had to look on the map and his dad pointed out that I lived at the very last stop of the Trans-Siberian Railway. They couldn’t believe I was at the very end of Russia and assumed it was the end of the world, where bears would be walking down the street and tigers might appear at the side of the road! It was all quite funny really, and Brian was very sweet and so very eager. He wanted to get to the dance school as soon as possible so we dropped him off at the hotel so he could freshen up – and warm up! And then I think it was just two hours later when we went to my dance school. We did some rehearsing and the first thing that struck me was that we both had very different styles of dancing. The training you get in Russia is all about technique and precision while he was a very natural dancer and there was a lot less structure to his moves. I think we danced the cha-cha-cha. It was fun, he was very warm and sweet and very complimentary of my dance skills.

  That evening I had group classes to teach and he asked if he could stay and watch, which I thought was funny as he couldn’t understand a word of Russian! But he wanted to stay and my friend who was acting as the translator was happy to stay and watch, too. Afterwards, we all went back to see my mum at the flat and have something to eat. Mum was cooking like crazy and wanted to feed him all this delicious Russian food so he could experience her homemade dishes. He stayed for about three days in Vladivostok and we spent more time dancing as well as doing a bit of sightseeing. Later he told me that all he remembers about coming over to meet me at that time was how cold it was and that he’d never seen a frozen sea before – so the dancing obviously made a big impact! The funny thing was, he lived in Seattle, which is a seaport as well and it rains a lot of the time, but apparently the weather he experienced in Russia made a lasting impression.

  After being with me for three days he told me that he would like to organise my visa to come to America and that he really wanted us to compete together. So he went back to Seattle to talk to the dance studio owners and talk to his parents – they would have to become my sponsors in order for me to be granted a visa. I would have to live with him and his family and I had to know they were all happy about that. To be honest, I didn’t think I would get the visa and all my friends kept telling me not to get my hopes up as lots of people we knew had tried to move to the States but had been refused. I was led to believe it was still a fairly difficult process. But my passion for competing had been reignited and I knew that life was too short not to give it a try, even if I was refused. I was only twenty-three years old, this was my time to compete and I could always fall back on teaching at any age. Igor was very supportive, however hard he might have found the prospect of me going, and he said to me, ‘Kristina, what are you doing here? Why are you still here teaching? Go and compete!’

  I was pleased. He was obviously very sad to be letting me go as I had been such a big help to him, but he understood that this was a great opportunity. But there was still a big part of me that couldn’t quite get my head around leaving Russia. I spoke no English and I had no money so how would I get on in America? Brian and I began exchanging letters, and if he called me I made sure my friend was there to translate. He would explain to her how it would all work logistically, which at least helped me understand the reality of moving to the States.

  I had to go to Moscow to apply for my visa – although we have an American Embassy in Vladivostok they didn’t deal with visas – so it felt like a long process. Once there I had several meetings and they took my fingerprints and I had to chat to a lot of people. You are then given a date to return to the Embassy to collect your passport, which has with it either a granted visa or a refusal letter. Now I can’t begin to tell you how happy I was when I returned and I saw this visa with all my paperwork! I was so over the moon and I really felt that somehow I had had help from the hand of Fate or from God, or something. When you do believe and when you want to do something so much, sometimes it can all just come together. Moving to America wasn’t my goal or my dream but to continue doing what I loved – dancing and competing – was, and it was coming true.

  Of course Mum was happy for me but she was very sad at the same time. She knew that in my heart this is what I wanted, though.

  ‘You can’t sit here at twenty-three years old, teaching children and thinking “What if?”’ she told me. ‘You’ve got to try so you have to go. You have a nice family to live with and you will have Julia too, who will always support you.’

  Did I worry that my mum would go back to drinking once I had gone? To be honest, I had nightmares for a long, long time where I would see an image of her, standing in our kitchen, drinking. That was where she always was, drinking in the kitchen. So yes, it frightened me that she would go back to those ways. But she wasn’t in a bad place at that time – she had a nice man who was very supportive in her life. And he did what my dad didn’t do: he took very good care of her. He drove her to her AA meetings and her therapy sessions and she completed all the steps and eventually decided that was that, she didn’t need it any more. She did it the right way and he was wonderful and I know he was a great support to her. He genuinely cared for her and even though they are not in a relationship any more, they are still good friends.

  Mum had officially divorced on 11 March 1999, two years before I moved to America. I don’t think there was any great rush to get it done before, it was just paperwork, although my dad remarried the same year so I think he had to show his official divorce papers before he could apply to get married again. It was just a formality really – my mum kept the flat and my dad got the divorce he needed. Many times over the years I asked Mum why she never remarried, but she always told me that she didn’t want me to be raised by another man. She said she was fighting for me to have my own father take responsibility, she wanted him to realise he was a dad and that he was the one who had to act like one. It is only now that she has admitted that she should have found someone else. Apparently for many, many years she didn’t think she would want another child as she thought one was plenty! But she has since told me that not having another child and starting a family with another man is her only regret. It wasn’t as if she was short of admirers, either. There were a couple of men around who were very much in love with her and wanted to adopt me, marry her and make a proper family, but she never accepted them.

  My dad had no idea that I was leaving Russia. By then I had no contact with him at all. I remember Mum telling me that she had heard he had remarried but he was never interested in fi
nding out what was happening in my life so I wasn’t that fussed about his. I received no letters, no contact, nothing: absolutely nothing. And he didn’t know I had left for America until a mutual friend told him and suddenly my mum got a phone call and he wanted to know what was going on and why wasn’t he told about me leaving the country? She told him it was because he never tried to contact me. He never made any effort to be in my life or to support me or be a father figure in any kind of way, so why would I tell him?

  He did ask for my address in America, which my mum gave him, and he wrote me a letter. I still have it somewhere, I think. In it he asked for forgiveness – for me to forgive him for the things he had done wrong, for being a bad father, for not being there for me. I was his only daughter and he said he regretted not making any effort. I don’t know what to say about it really. Yes, it was nice to receive the letter but I can’t say it made me feel anything for him. I forgive him most things, I don’t carry grudges in life, but I will never forget how he made me feel when I was just a child. I think the pain and the grief when he left me all those times, and then when he left at the most difficult time in my life, when my mum was so low and he saw me struggling to deal with her on my own, I will never forgive him for that. I should never have had to deal with that.

  He was obviously saying to all his friends that he couldn’t live with my mother because she was always drinking, but she was always drinking because they were so unhappy. He never made any effort to take her to the doctor and he never made her feel that he cared – not even caring in the most basic form, one human being for another. And they were husband and wife! Then there was my mum, who had made so much effort to make our relationship work again, that was what mattered to me now. So yes, it was nice to receive his letter but I didn’t want to have him back in my life. Besides, my life was about to head off in a completely new direction. In May 2001, I was ready to start my new adventure in America…