Sylvi
Dancer
Teacher
Movement Explorer
Choreographer
MY DANCE STORY
I often get asked about why and how I started to dance almost 30 years ago. Why I never specialized and only committed to one style. And what it is that makes me spend days and nights dancing, bringing my body to the limits- sometimes almost without sleeping. It´s addictive. Because it can be magic.
HOW iT STARTED
It's such a cliché, but it's true. When I was 11 years old, "Dirty Dancing" came out in theaters. At that age, I haven't really gone to the movies very often. My parents have been very strict with media consumption and going to the cinema was a "once-a-year-thing".
This film was in theaters for more than a year and about a year after it premiered my best friend told me about it. She was totally impressed by it and bought the soundtrack straight away. I listened to the music tape(yes, looong ago!) and thought the music was nice, but a bit old-fashioned. Of course the music was old-fashioned because the film is set in the 1960s. After my friend told me over and over again about the funny "watermelon scene" and raving about how great the dancing is, I became curious and finally persuaded my parents to allow me to watch the movie. My friend joined me and I think she watched it for the third time.
What can I say ... the movie touched my soul. The whole story, Patrick Swayze's back muscles (sexy!), dancing, ... and in the context of the story, the "old-fashioned" music also found its way into my heart. At the age of about 13 I was sitting in the cinema and just thought how wonderful it must feel to dance with another person in such harmony. Let me explain again exactly: it wasn't just that I was impressed with the dancing. I immediately felt that this was something for me. I wanted to feel just as free, wanted to experience the same harmony of movement with another person meeting in music. I knew I could do it too.
My girlfriend and I started dancing in our attic and when the video cassette with the film was available we played the cassette backwards and forwards and learned the original choreography of the last dance step by step. Including the famous lift! I was shorter than my girlfriend at the time, so I was "Baby" and she was "Johnny".
FiRST DANCE LESSONS
Around the same time we had a PE teacher at our school who was offering jazz dance lessons. Together with a music teacher, she even brought entire musicals to the school stage.
I signed up for jazz dance and thought it was great. After my beginner lessons, I stayed to watch the advanced.
In the first musical I took part in, the teacher even selected me for a solo part! As the only one in the beginner group! And she gave me the music and asked me to think of suitable movements - my first choreography. It was very short and mostly walking and turning in the character of the role, but I was so proud. On stage, I was incredibly nervous and my whole body was shaking, but I loved it.
Then I was invited to the advanced group and after a while, the teacher even involved me in creating a few choreography pieces for the next musical.
Looking back, I am so incredibly grateful that she saw and encouraged my passion back then!
PARTNER DANCiNG
Still, it was solo dance. And I really wanted to experience partner dancing. So I also tried the Rock`n Roll lessons offered at school. After I got the basics down, I was a popular victim for the older guys to practice lifts and acrobatics because I was such a lightweight. One time a partner dropped me and I really hurt myself falling against the corner of a gymnastics bench. I had a deep hole in my shin, the scar can still be seen today. I got a little scared and also realized that Rockn Roll is probably not my preferred way of feeling the harmony of couples dancing.
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I was raised “neutrally” and the sport my parents chose for me was athletics. I learned to jump high and far, 100m sprint and even to shot put. And I enjoyed it. Only the 800m discipline and the training sessions on Saturday morning weren't for me. I've even competed and won a lot of medals and trophies. My parents never even remotely thought of putting me in ballet school because they didn't want to make me the "typical girl". I played soccer with my father during our summer vacation. And then I asked my parents to help me find a partner dance class.
Exactly at the time when I was invited to prepare for the German athletics championship.
They cringed a bit, but they tried. They were taking dance classes and even met each other at a social dance. But at that time, the dance school in our town only allowed teenagers from the age of 16 and up to join the traditional partner dance classes with a prom at the end. I was only 15 and got rejected. So I ended up in a youth partner dancing class of a dance and competition club with one of my class mates, who I convinced to join.
FiRST COMPETiTiONS
After a few months they organized a small competition at the end of the course. My partner backed out last minute, but I found a new partner and was very happy. We became very good friends and he was fun to dance with. We even took first place in the standard dances. The standard coach seemed impressed and invited us to practice in the advanced competors class and to pepare for the Bavarian championship a few months later. During that time I learned so much and got a little idea of what dancing can feel like.
The only thing I didn't like at all was the thing with the fancy clothes and make-up. I felt like when I was dressed up like a doll, I would no longer be myself. At 17 I was more of a jeans and t-shirt girl and not particularly interested in fashion and styling. Especially in comparison to the competition outfits in athletics, it seemed very unnatural and ridiculous to me to wear these expensive clothes and to make my face unrecognizable with a lot of make-up. Especially when dancing is about expression ... I had hot discussions with my coach, cried and fought. But in the end I had to accept that this is part of the dance sport and gave in. It was a difficult time because I also had to choose between athletics and dancing. Dancing is an expensive sport and my parents wanted to make sure I will continue before they were willing to pay for an expensive dress and private lessons.
Eventuall, i mastered all these challenges and I danced at the Bavarian Championships with my wonderful partner. We placed 7th of more than 50 couples. I was a little dissatisfied with the result because I knew we could do better and made plans to practice more. Unfortunately, my partner had health problems. Right after our first competition, he told me that he had to stop because he had serious problems with his back and knees. He didn't want to let me down before the Bavarian Championships and took strong painkillers to get through the training sessions and the competition. And he didn't say a word to me! He wanted to "float" with me at least once, as he called it. And he didn't want to disappoint me. That was so sweet. I was ashamed because I was so focused on practicing that I didn't even realize what he was going through. And I was infinitely sad because I knew that I would not find a better friend and dance partner!
After a while, my coach found a new dance partner for me. It wasn't the same because we were very different personalities, but we worked well together. At least mostly. He was already more advanced and I accepted the challenge of learning quickly and catching up. We´ve been very successful, but it wasn't the same. Nevertheless, bein busy with learning so many new things, I pushed my desire for a partner with whom I could “float” into the background. We danced well together but never managed to connect deeply on a personal level. I also always wanted to do Latinamerican danes, which he categorically refused. He wasn't the type for it either.
HOW i BECAME A DANCE TEACHER
We danced together for about 3 years and I had just graduated from high school when a large dance school in Munich offered me an apprenticeship. I accepted. I actually never had the desire to teach, but I saw my chance to learn more, especially about the Latin dances.
At a dance teacher convention I was lucky enough to meet one of my dance idols. By chance we danced together in a lecture and he seemed to have enjoyed it. I loved it! But whenever he danced with me, I was very nervous and trembled all over out of fear to not be good enough and make mistakes. But he kept asking me over and over, and over the years I became more relaxed. We bacame friends and even when we meet now, we like to dance together. I am very grateful to have met him because he was one of my most important mentors as a teacher and as a dancer. He managed to bring the feeling of "floating" back to me.
During my apprenticeship, I continued to dance with my dance partner for a while, but then he got married and his wife wanted him to stop. I was very sad and disappointed that he let me down at a time when we were only 3 points away of moving up to the top class.
For a couple of weeks I tried a new dance partner. We became friends and danced well together, but our different working hours made it very complicated. So we agreed to stop competing. Instead he started teaching me in a new dance school and we tried out Argentine tango together, choreographed shows for us and our dance students and just had fun dancing. This felt amazing- to dance only for fun and pleasure! Not for business, not for competition. Just for the sake of dancing.
OTHER DANCE STYLES
At around the same time, I discovered not only Argentine Tango and Salsa, but also a thing called Videoclip dancing. Yes, it was the time of Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears and Co. I had a lot of fun learning and teaching these choreos.
I´ve been coaching a wonderful and unique group of girls who even won the German and European championships! It was a great time and I totally focused on teaching this group and traveling with them through Europe. What I liked about these competitions was, that most of the participants wore normal clothes: sports pants and a top. No fancy hairdos, just a baseball cap. And no extreme make-up like I was used to from the other comps.
But the best thing about this time is, that I am still in contact with some of the girls and we are good friends. It was such a special group! With them I could feel the harmony and togetherness that I had always looked for in partner dance. Although they were all much younger than me, they taught me that people with completely different personalities can also fuse into a team if they are completely open to dance and music. That it is even possible in solo dance to feel one another and to become one in dance and music- even without touching.
Also because of my boyfriend at the time, who was an amazing HipHop dancer and teacher, i was drawn more and more to HipHop, We spent a lot of nights in the dance studio, I studied his movements carefully and asked him questions over questions.
That opened up a whole new field of music and movement experience for me and taught me how the natural flow of movement works. And I enjoyed to be independant of a dance partner to dance and feel the music in my body.
My focus at the time clearly was solo dance and the only time I was involved in partner dance was when I was teaching in the dance school my boyfriend and I opened. Although, the love for partner dancing never stopped.
LOVE AT FiRST SiGHT
Time passed and I spent the years teaching both solo and partner dance. First in my boyfriend's dance school and then, after we split up, independently in different regions of Germany. Every year I went to dance festivals and conventions to satisfy my hunger for something new. And in 2013, at the Euro Dance Festival, Europe's largest dance festival, I discovered West Coast Swing.
I immediately felt that this was something for me! I felt that this dance would fulfill my wish to connect with the partner and get lost in music! I was super busy at that time and so it took another year before I really started taking lessons, but it was definitely love at first sight. I was lucky and met a fantastic teacher and mentor right at the beginning, who saw the dance fire that burns inside me and encouraged me.
What can I say? It's true. This dance offers everything that I've been looking for for so long. I still like to dance all the other styles, but WCS is my favorite. Some dances are better than others, but some are pure magic and I feel free!
