SVETLANA RAY

“I’ve seen Svetlana growing from a shy beginner when I first taught in Saint Petersburg, to a very positive/confident/talented dancer/teacher and dance coach. She definetely has the knowledge and know how’s of this dance and most importantly, conveying that knowledge to her students and followers and making them great dancers. I’ve had the pleasure of teaching with Svetlana a few times in festivals , and, not only is a great follower, she also identifies ways to communicate the women’s role in following this dance. It’s an awesome skill to have. Svetlana is very hard working, dedicated and skilled dancer we have around us - so if you do get a chance to learn from her, you should. She is incredibly gifted with musicality details and how to dissect the learning procedure, which I love and I think everyone should learn” - SuperMario

Biography

I started to dance being 3-years old. Was zealous assimilating cha-cha-cha, waltz and other ballroom dances. When I was 5 my first competition took place and, as they say, here we go. 11 years of painstaking training, participations and victories in different competitions, travelling all over the Russia, Kazakhstan,

Uzbekistan, Kirghizia. After finishing my career in ballroom dances I had occupied with flamenco. As a member of collective ‘Del Corazon’ in 2007 won the festival ‘Star rain’ in Czechia, was appearing on many stages of Saint-Petersburg.

Later was interested by salsa and since that time I’ve been dedicating myself to Latin dances. At first I was learning a lot and later started to teach. Being psychologist I had worked out plenty of educating courses in different aspects of salsa.

In 2010 got the award “Teacher’s debut” and “Miss Hope” on the ceremony of commitment the awards in the area of Latin-American culture SNA in Moscow. In 2013 became the prizewinner of the show-spot competition «Sabrosunsky» on the White Nights salsa fest in Saint-Petersburg.

In 2014 I opened a Dancing school with my partner Anastasiya Stashevskaya. Dance High School is now a place where I do all the experiments with my students and teachers team. In 2014 and 2016 have got “Miss salsa” title under the version of SNA, in 2017 - Teacher of the year, 2018 - Dance High School got School of the year.

Now I’m travelling all over the Russia and Europe, giving the workshops for students and teachers. Classes in such cities as Vienna, Split, Moscow, Minsk, Almaty, Yekaterinburg, Perm, Krasnodar, Krasnoyarsk, Samara, Chelyabinsk, Odessa and some others are under my belt. It’s interesting for me to improve myself, to open up new styles, create new staging and elaborate exclusive courses