When I was growing up in the USSR, all after school activities, art and dance classes were available to all kids at no cost. So, it gave me and everyone else real freedom to explore, try, and choose: drawing, swimming, gymnastics, tennis, folk dancing, ballet, chess, and more. This experience largely defined for me the ambiguous term freedom.
I decided to study comprehensively various forms of dance, movement, music, and theatre at the legendary Russian dance academies in Moscow and Perm. Concentrating more on the classical dance in the end, I graduated with highest honors, dancing the main role in the ballet 'Swan Lake.' While performing with Moscow Festival Ballet, Perm Opera, Kremlin Ballet, and Stars of Bolshoi, I had a chance to travel and see the world. About the same time, I started teaching dance.
When the USSR was taken apart, like millions of others, I was forced by the social and political chaos of Perestroika to move abroad. By chance, though influenced by the propaganda, I landed in the US. In the new land, I was eager to explore the culture and learn new forms of dance and movement. Seeing that performing arts, especially ballet, were turning into "the playground for the rich," I was keen to discover another way to live with dance. I found it necessary to study American history, psychology, history and sociology of arts and dance and received my MA from the State University of New York. All of the studies allowed me to understand better numerous functions of dance in different societies, including the US.
Moving to New Paltz, I worked locally with NPSB, Vanaver Caravan, Figures in Flight Dance Company, and others; at the same time, I explored various forms of yoga and completed a Hatha yoga teacher's training program. Yoga deepened my understanding of movement and dance too. During this time, visiting frequently New York City, I was also introduced to swing and salsa and liked it, but, when my best friend Sasha took me to a tango class, I was totally captivated. Dance brings friends, feelings of real well-being, connection, vitality, awareness, purpose, and happiness in the world and with the world.

Visit www.tangonewpaltz.com to learn more about Nina.

'It is with their muscles that humans most easily obtain knowledge of the divine.' -Aldous Huxley