She may only be 13, but Marielle Shvaitser has already experienced the rush of success.
The Harvest Hills Elementary School student has been dancing since she was two and with partner Daniel Reunov currently holds the title of Canadian junior Latin dance champion.
They’re now preparing to represent Canada at the WDSF (World Dance Sport Federation) Latin World Championship in Romania on Sept. 14, to be followed by the world dance Junior Championships in Slovakia on Sept. 28 and 29.
“I started dancing when I was two years old,” she explains, adding that she started with ballet and began doing Latin dancing at age four. “I still do ballet, it helps a lot with my training.
“I love it.”
When she’s dancing on a stage or a dance floor there’s an adrenaline rush that she wants to keep experiencing.
But it’s more than that. The training, practices and preparations also leaves her with a great sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.
“Practising and working hard it makes me feel good … even though your exhausted you know you did well and you’re proud of yourself.”
With Reunov, who lives in Newmarket, Shvaitser has been focusing on Latin and ballroom dancing as they prepare for the world championships.
The two began dancing together when she was four and he was five. Together they’ve found a groove that allowed them to develop their skills as they continue dancing together.
“We met at our dance school. We both go to the same studio and we both did ballroom and we were a perfect match” with similar ages, she explains. “And it worked immediately.”
They train at the Dance Stream Studio in Vaughan, which is run by her family, and they also get some training time at DanceHub Bradford.
To qualify for the world’s, the pair had to be in the top two at the Ontario regional competition and win at the nationals in Toronto. Last year, they were second at nationals, which was in Calgary, and ranked 50th in the world competition out of 79 couples. They were the minimum age for juniors, which is 12 to 15.
“We’re working toward a higher goal now. We’ve been training a lot more than last year ... so we’re hoping for more this year,” says Shvaitser, who figures she spends 25 hours per week training during the school year, a number that increases during the summer.
The pair will compete in the world championship in Romania in the ballroom dances: waltz, tango, Viennese waltz, foxtrot and quickstep. They’ll also participate in the open category in Latin, with the samba, cha-cha-cha, rumba and paso doble.
In Slovakia they’ll compete in all 10 dances.
Shvaitser, who focuses largely on Latin and ballroom dancing, also does jazz, hip hop, tap and acro, anything that’s available in the competitive world.
And she comes from a line of dancers.
Her brother, Leon, who is 22, also did ballroom and Latin and studied dance at university. He was also the grand champion in the Canadian National Exhibition's (CNE) 35th annual Rising Star talent competition in 2022.
While Shvaitser says she follows in his footsteps, her family has a richer history in dance.
“We are originally from Ukraine … and we came to Canada and opened the dance school” where Shvaitser and her partner train, explains her mom, Elena.
While Elena takes care of the Latin and ballroom division, her husband Sergei’s role in the studio centres more on ballet, jazz, hip hop and contemporary dance.
About 130 dancers have been training at the studio this past year. Many of the alumni over the 18 years have graduated onto professional dance careers as instructors or dancers.
The Shvaitsers have been collaborating, more recently, with Youth Educational Sport and Dance Organization to help support dancers who are competing at the highest levels, given the lack of financial support from government in dance as a sport.
But if it is added to the Olympics, Elena says, dancers should qualify for support as athletes.
In the interim, dancers must rely on their own resources. Anyone interested in supporting the dancers can reach out to [email protected].
