BRIEF HISTORY OF VICTOR KANEVSKY’S KAISER DANCESPORT CLUB

Victor Kanevsky began his love affair with the world of dance in 1968. That was when his parents brought him to his first dance class in his native Kiev, USSR. He has been at it ever since.

Upon immigrating to the US on Halloween, 1978 he continue to pursue dance training, which led him to his mentor, a great dance master Gyula (Julius) Kaiser. (That’s the reason for the name of the school.) After several years Kaiser introduced him to another coach who became a huge influence in Victor’s career, an Australian champion Robert Richie. Those two men have guided his competitive life to numerous titles in competitions throughout US and Canada. Victor, with his two most notable competition partners Sherri Werba and Diana Rogers (McDonald), has dominated the competition scene in North America from 1986-1990. He has won, among others, East US, Mid US and California Star Ball Championships. But his greatest accomplishments have been the 87 and 88 Titles of Ohio Star Ball Champion (of the PBS TV’s Championship Ballroom Dancing fame), as well as making the finals in both USBC (US Open Dancesport Championships) and Clasique de Quebec (Canadian Open Championships).

After leaving the competition world as a two time North American Champion, Victor got advised by Robert Richie to have a tryout with the principal dancer of the American Ballroom Theater Dee Quinones. It as a very successful tryout, which resulted in his joining the world renowned ABrT under directorship of Pierre Dulaine (whose story was captured in Hollywood’s “Take a Lead” in which Antonio Banderas portrayed Pierre, and in a documentary “Mad Hot Ballroom”) and his life long dance partner Yvonne Marceau with whom they formed a legendary duo that captured Blackpool titles as well as an honor of the Fred Astaire award for best dancing on Broadway.

But the greatest success of abovementioned tryout was Dee’s changing her last name to Kanevsky and subsequent arrival of Mariah Kanevsky born in 1998.

Through his association with the ABrT Victor has starred in shows from Hong Kong Arts Festival to Kennedy Center Awards in Washington, DC (CBS), Thanksgiving Day Parade (NBC), recurring role in Univision’s Sabado Gigante just to mention a few.

Also, on New Years Eve 1990 he kicked off a phenomena that is still going strong throughout Russian immigrant community in US and Canada – a dance review show at Russian restaurants, turning them into Supper Club experiences.

Victor Kanevsky began to train competitive dancers in 1990 and by 1993 he had a small stable of young dancers with whom he went to local competitions in the North East US.

In October of 1993 Kaiser Dancesport was born. The entire school at the time had 38 kids. In the next 18 months the popularity of kids ballroom dancing saw the opening of other schools all over the country. However it was Victor’s kids that have made unprecedented strides in the competition world. His students have been dominating the world of competition dancing ever since. Since 1994 US National Champions have almost exclusively been students of Kaiser Dancesport. The list of current and former students reads like the Who is Who of ballroom dancing. As a matter of fact the teachers in all of Kaiser Dancesport schools have almost exclusively been students at the school. They include current #1 couple in the World Eugene Katsevman and Maria Manusova, one of the top professional competitors Oksana Zolotarevskaya with her new partner Bas van der Zanden (former Dutch champion), Alan Krasilnikov, Anna Tovbin, Anja Katsevman, Kenneth Polishchuk, Dmitry Yesin have all been students at Kaiser Dancesport. Natalia Bragarnik and Stephanie Falciano have been Victor’s students even before Kaiser Dancesport was found.

Students who have gone to careers outside of “Kaiser” include former World Champions Beata Onefater, Val Chmerkovsky and his older brother Max (most resently of the “Dancing with the Stars”), Sandra Udis, Valery Kozharinova and Diana Olshanetskaya. The legendary Karina Smirnoff, whose accomplishments are too numerous to mention and is now starring in the “Dancing with the Stars” has been Victor’s student since the age of 15. Juvenile Blackpool champions Mark Dyu and Karina??? The National Champions, finalists and international finalists list would take another couple of pages.

Many schools have been inviting Victor Kanevsky, Eugene Katsevman and Maria Manusova to train their students and staff. They include some of the best competitive Schools in the world like Genesis in SF, Kiev, Israel, Hong Kong, Toronto, San Diego, Vancouver, Houston, Florida, Montreal, Utah and others.

In the meantime Kaiser Dancesport has turned over a new leaf. One of the new goals is to bring quality and great fun to social dancing throughout the US. With our great staff that is located all over the country and the brand name recognition within the industry that is second to none, we have a unique product that in today’s world of TV dance shows and Ballroom movies could become a business giant.

Just a side note, Victor Kanevsky has also made a name as a choreographer for Ice Skating dancers. His credits include among others World Champions and Olympic Silver medalists Oleg Ovsyannikov and Anjelica Krilova, and the reigning World Champions Maxim Staviski and Albena Denkova.

Victor Kanevsky