In the senior classes of school she saw acrobatic
rock’n’roll competitions. She liked the
tricks and promised herself she would someday try doing that. The opportunity presented itself only when
Ksenia was a student, during the first year
at a high school – due to a series of unbelievable coincidences she came upon the “B17” acrobatic
rock’n’roll club. For several years she trained there,
had two different partners. Then for a couple of years she had no partner – it was then that she became keen
on hustle. In 1994 Ksenia became the
first “Miss Hustle” at a competition organized by Dance College club and this was first of many brilliant
victories.
She saw boogie woogie ’live’ for the first time performed by Dmitry Tarasov, she first tried it in Tutti
Frutti club. Then in 1997 she began training in
TantsKlass. A year later Vladimir Ishimov became her partner.
Now many of their students become true swing fanatics, they travel to study, they begin teach themselves –
that is keep the cause going.
Vladimir Ishimov
Was the prize-winner of the first acrobatic
rock’n’roll tournament in the USSR – and since
then it all started. Vladimir didn’t miss a single competition, several times was awardee and winner of Cups
and Championships of the country, Moscow
and other cities of the USSR, and later of Russia in B-class (the most numerous in those times in
rock’n’roll).
In 1993 he saw boogie woogie. He was among the three couples that were the first to perform boogie woogie on
stage in Russia (Tarasov-Kosmynina,
Gavrikov-Sokolova, Ishimov-Shestopal) in 1994.
When his sport career in acrobatic rock’n’roll was over he started working as a trainer. At the same time he
carried on taking part in boogie woogie
competitions. Together with Nadejda Ryzhova he was one of the first to take part in international
competitions (Finland, Helsinki, 2-nd place) Together
with Ksenia Semenikhina he several times became the prize winner of Cups of Russia, and the champion of
Russia in 2002. All that time he was also
actively promoting boogie woogie on TV, at concerts, tournaments and competitions. Vladimir and Ksenia were
the first to begin dancing and teach
others to dance improvisationally, like it is done all over the world. They studied Marcus Koch’s teaching
method and adapted it to our conditions.
Several times Vladimir took part in international competitions, dance schools and camps, took lessons with
worlds leading dancers (Lennart
Westerlund, Franky Manning, Peter Loggins, Janise Wilson, Marcus Koch & Barbl Kaufer, Michael Grimme
& Andrea Shiffer, Melanie Bucher
& others). At the moment except boogie he dances and teaches all the kinds of swing dances (Lindy hop,
Charleston, Balboa, Shag)
In the senior classes of school she saw acrobatic
rock’n’roll competitions. She liked the
tricks and promised herself she would someday try doing that. The opportunity presented itself only when
Ksenia was a student, during the first year
at a high school – due to a series of unbelievable coincidences she came upon the “B17” acrobatic
rock’n’roll club. For several years she trained there,
had two different partners. Then for a couple of years she had no partner – it was then that she became keen
on hustle. In 1994 Ksenia became the
first “Miss Hustle” at a competition organized by Dance College club and this was first of many brilliant
victories.
Was the prize-winner of the first acrobatic
rock’n’roll tournament in the USSR – and since
then it all started. Vladimir didn’t miss a single competition, several times was awardee and winner of Cups
and Championships of the country, Moscow
and other cities of the USSR, and later of Russia in B-class (the most numerous in those times in
rock’n’roll).