Romance is the story of dance

She passed him in the hallway of a dance school and smiled. Something made her turn and look back. He looked back, too.

Thus was the beginning of a life-long love affair not only with each other but, as a couple, with dance. It’s what they do. It’s who they are. 

Polina Pilipenchuk did the unthinkable. She quit dancing after the fifth grade because her partner was too short. And in Belarus — an Eastern European country that was part of the former USSR — quitting dance is not something you generally do. Dance is not a hobby in Belarus, it’s a way of life. It’s part of the culture, not just a pastime.

“There’s probably not a kid in Belarus who doesn’t dance,” Polina, now 43, says.

And one of those kids, who was a little better than the rest, was Igor Pilipenchuk. At 15, he was 6 feet 3 inches tall and played basketball for his high school. His lean build was made for sports, but his heart was made for the dance floor.

“I just wanted to dance,” Igor, 44, says. “Mostly to be around girls and be cool with a few friends.”

“He became one of the top dancers and the champion of the Republic of Belarus. He was very, very good,” said Polina, who went to several of Igor’s dance competitions in Minsk. “I thought he was so handsome. I never thought I would be able to dance with him.”

But Igor was looking for a partner and was willing to take on the challenge of a fifth-grade quitter.

“First we fell in love, but we didn’t dance with each other,” Polina says. “Then we danced together because we wanted to be together.”

Now it was Polina who was coming up short.

“I actually stretched myself about an inch and a half,” she says. “I worked on posture and elongated my spine. Because he’s so tall, I had to match him. He was always correcting my posture with a hand on my back.”

The couple practiced rigorously three times a day, followed by running and swimming.

“I was a beginner, he was a champion,” Polina says. “We had to practice twice as hard.”

No minute was spared. Even after practice, they were incorporating dance into everyday activities.

“We could never let ourselves relax,” Polina says.

Polina would place technique books that she had been studying on her head to work on balance. Igor carried a glass of water for hours at a time with his elbows raised high to perfect his posture. Thirty minutes every day, Polina would jump rope, just to “get her feet right.”

“We didn’t have a vacation for 15 years,” she says.

But in the end, practice goes only so far.

“Our success was that we had chemistry,” Polina says. “We understand each other. You need that magic connection, that important link.”

For them, it was Igor’s elegance and Polina’s femininity with a touch of fire.

They made great dancing look easy. 

The 10-Dance competition — a major one for all serious ballroom competitors — involves five Latin American dances and five standard ballroom dances. Competitors can’t choose their music. Judges want to see dancers think on their feet — literally.

“Ballroom dancing is all about how to use your feet and body weight in connection with the floor,” Polina says.

The pressure of competition never broke them, but Igor and Polina found that world recognition only forced them to work harder.

“Once we became champions, we didn’t want to lose,” she says. “We represented the United States, so we had to be good. We couldn’t let anybody beat us.”

It all added up to two U.S. National 10-Dance championships, four North American 10-Dance championships and a spot in the world 10-Dance finals. The many competitions and trophies have blurred over the years. Titles won have escaped their memories. But the drive to dance has never faded.

“Through it all, we just wanted to feel good about our dancing,” Polina says.

The couple married in 1985, the same year their son, Nikolai, was born. “In those days, we lived out of a suitcase,” Polina says. “Our family really helped us; they are very supportive.”

Nikolai, now 21, also has made dancing his career. His partner, Natalia Skorikova, 21, a dark-haired beauty with a shining presence, came from Belarus just to dance with him. They are now full-time competitors.

“They just need to practice more,” Igor says with a scolding tone.

No doubt the drive of a national-champion father will be an inspiration.

“Igor is very dedicated. Nothing in the world could stop him from dancing,” Polina says.

Igor and Polina haven’t stopped dancing together, but three years ago, they slowed it down a bit.

“We felt there were so many younger couples who needed a chance,” Polina says as she sits in the office of the Atlantic Ballroom, a Towson dance studio that she and Igor now own.

The studio once belonged to world-champion dancer Glennis Dee, who saw Igor and Polina dance in a 1992 competition in Utah and asked them to come to the United States to teach at her Towson dance school. Seven years ago, Dee turned the dance school over to Igor and Polina.

Suddenly, the couple from Belarus were business partners in America.

On any given night, the Atlantic Ballroom is a mix of old and young, most of whom have signed up for either private lessons or one of the many group lessons. Professionals and amateurs — whether alone or with partners — go over their moves under the critical eyes of the Pilipenchuks or one of their handful of top-notch instructors. Two left feet? It doesn’t matter. Polina will tell you that everybody can learn to dance. It’s a social soiree for singles and a pacifier for those with wedding-dance jitters.

An older woman floats by in the arms of a younger man, tilting her head back and letting him carry her through the steps. Her eyes are somewhere else. She looks as if she’s danced a thousand foxtrots, and her worn high-heeled dance shoes give her away.

Her partner is an instructor — tall, handsome, younger by decades. His name is Alexander Senko, a 2004 U.S. National Amateur 10-Dance champion.

The couple twirl in complex circles, gliding past other dancers, all the while maintaining the lines of perfect posture.

Every student learns from a dance-champion instructor. The key, however, is practice. Dancing doesn’t stop in the studio.

“I always wanted to be a dancer; I want my girls to dance,” Marina Gilkis says as she watches her 6-year-old twin daughters learn the salsa.

Her daughters excel in the small group and can stay in step with the instructor.

“We watch dancing on TV and practice every day,” Renata Gilkis says. “I like to dance fast.”

The patience of instructor Olga Chekhova, 24, is undeniable, as she struggles to keep the attention of seven girls and one distracted boy in a weekly dance lesson for children ages 3 to 6.

“The hardest part is teaching ballroom dancing, because we need more boys,” says Chekhova, who came to the United States from Belarus four years ago and is a U.S. National Amateur 10 Dance champion. “But I enjoy teaching the kids, because they love it, and they have smiling faces.”

Galina Tucker’s 4-year-old twins started taking lessons in July. It’s clear that Alina has a passion for dance; her brother, Alan, sometimes struggles to keep up.

“But every time music comes on, they move with it. It’s great exercise,” Tucker says.

A lot of the children come from Ukrainian families, and the cultural emphasis on dance has not escaped them.

“Dance was very popular where I grew up in Ukraine,” says Yuliya Klopouh, who has two daughters taking dance lessons at the studio. “It really didn’t get popular here until all of those TV dance shows. My dream was that if I had girls, they would become ballroom dancers.”

Out on the floor, the children are learning the basics, striving toward a complete dance. The faint sound of their voices can be heard above the music. They are counting out each step, speaking the numbers in Ukrainian. From the other side of the dance floor, Igor Pilipenchuk keeps a watchful eye.

cpeirce@baltimoreexaminer.com