— from an interview from a recent issue of Dance Notes.
 
Elaine Sheresky… Weather Girl To Dancesport Champion.

Elaine Sheresky and her instructor Victor Russu make a striking image on the dance floor. They have won many titles in the American Smooth division including the United States Pro/Am American Smooth Championship for five years. Drawing from her acting background, Elaine shows great feeling in expressing the dances and the music. Her enthusiasm and love of dance show in every movement she makes. Victor came to the United States in 1998 to teach at a Fred Astaire studio in New York City. He was immediately attracted to the American style ballroom dancing and competed professionally. Before retiring because of his partner's health problems, Victor won the Rising Star American Smooth title at the Ohio Star Ball and was the Fred Astaire National Professional American Smooth Champion. Elaine's acting and theatre background combined with Victor's ballroom dance knowledge have made them a team on the move since they began their pro/am partnership.

You use two different last names. What name do you like to use for dancing?

My name is Elaine Lewis. I married Norman Sheresky, but I never changed my name because I was in the theatre, and somehow Lewis seemed a better name than Sheresky. When I started dancing more than ten years ago, I was doing a lot of television and I danced as Elaine Sheresky to hide. My dancing embarrassed me, so I didn't want anybody to know what I was doing. I thought I could hide, but people would come up and say, "Oh, you do the weather, don't you?!" The hiding didn't work, but I had put myself down in the book as Elaine Sheresky, so I've been that for dancing ever since, but no other place am I Sheresky.

How did you start dancing?

I had been commuting to a television job that was two hours out of New York City, and I was working three broadcasts a night, five nights a week. After I'd done this for about three years, my husband finally said, "Do you want to be married, or do you just want to stay in television?" I chose to be married, so I gave up the job and went back to New York City. I found a flier about ballroom dancing, from Fred Astaire Dance Studios, in my apartment building. Convinced that there would never be anything left for me in my life again, I thought, "Well, this is something to fill the time." I knew nothing about ballroom dancing or competitive ballroom dancing. I dragged my husband with me, so that we should not be social wallflowers when we went to dances.

How many years ago was that?

That was about 1991. I didn't get serious about the dancing until about five or six years later. Actually, it was Victor Russu who really introduced me to the world of competition dancing. I had done a few competitions prior to that, but not in any serious way. It sort of all happened by magic. Victor kind of just moved me into little places, and I really didn't know what was going on. Then we started to win and I'd say, "Oh my! Isn't that nice? Isn't this fun?" So he sort of moved me along like his little puppet at first. Now I've caught on to what's happening, but it took a little while!

Has Victor been your teacher all along?

No. I danced with a number of other people prior to Victor, but it was Victor who really took an interest. It was Victor who said, "Hmmm, if I put her here, put her there, or teach her this and that, maybe something will happen." He knew. It never occurred to me to get out and compete on a national level and win. That was just so exciting! I didn't go into it, as a lot of people do, really knowing what competition dancing was. I sort of came in the back door, and just discovered this world.

What about your husband? Does he dance any more?

He's a wonderful dancer. He gave it up after a couple of years, but he got as far as some silver steps. So whenever we go to any kind of functions, he gets on the floor and he does a really nice job. And of course, he loves what's happened with my success in ballroom dancing, but he would never be a partner-type person for competition dancing. He's not interested. He's never done a competition, nor would he ever. He just likes to look at it.

Does he go to a lot of the competitions?

At first he did. Now he's sort of decided, "Show me the tape." He's gotten a little tired of it.

What's been the biggest difference between being on the stage and ballroom dancing?

Since my background is theatre, one of the hardest things when I started competition dancing was getting over the fact that you don't get a chance to get out there on the floor where you're going to perform and do it before the audience-or in this case, the judges and the audience-see it. Because in professional theatre, when you're getting any kind of performance ready, it's a five day week, eight hour a day job. You rehearse in a rehearsal studio, and when it's time to go to the place where the performance will take place, you have full dress rehearsals there. So you know that stage, that arena or the space. With ballroom dancing, you can't do that. Even if you get a chance to feel the floor, you get out there and there's an extemporaneous quality about it because there are all these other bodies moving on the floor. That scared me for a long time. I couldn't get over the fact that I couldn't be absolutely accurate, absolutely precise... that I had to deal with all these unknowns coming at me. But now I'm getting better at that. I say, "It's my floor too; I'm coming through!".

How did you get over it?

Just experience. I don't feel that I'm a competitive person. I always feel that I'm a performer. I don't go out there to show you my neat heel turn. Of course, I want to do a nice heel turn, and I work on that certainly, and any other technique of dancing, in the studio. But once I'm out on the floor, I'm really not there to compete. I'm there to entertain. It's kind of like that song from Gypsy, "Let me entertain you, let me make you smile." That's really what I want to do. And as a performer, when you do a show night after night after night, you've got a new audience and it's got to be fresh for that audience. So it's the illusion of it being the first time. I try to apply that to the dancing too, in that, each time you go out there, it has to come from some place inside. It still has to give that feeling of, "I'm doing this new, just for you." It can't be a pasted on smile. It can't be a pasted on character of the dance. Each time you have to find some way to react to your partner and make it new. That comes from my theatre experience. With dancing, the addition is learning to express through the whole body and not just the face. Every part of me can say something about this particular dance.

How do you make it fresh every time?

You have to react spontaneously to what happens. I have a fabulous teacher who is there for me on the floor all the time. I look in his face, I see what it says, I think he reacts to whatever I'm expressing at that moment too. And where do those expressions come from? A lot of it comes from the music. You have to hear what's going on and that will motivate, then that motivation has to be picked up by the other person. I first try to relate to him, but then there's the audience to consider too. But I don't play to the audience. I really try to have a moment or a scene with my teacher. And then, if something's going on in the audience, or people are reacting, then I have to cross that invisible fourth wall, and react to that too. So it's a little different from a play, because the characters in a very representational play aren't going to acknowledge the audience. But in the dancing, there has to be the scene, but there also has to be crossing that wall to the audience, and then react to that. It's not only doing something, but it's responding to what's happening.

Do you ever find that you can't get yourself in that place when you compete?

Absolutely. I remember taking an acting class years ago, with the famous Lee Strasberg of the Method school of acting. Mr. Strasberg had just been talking about working from moment to moment, in other words, keeping things fresh and having an internal motivation. And one of the actors said, "Well, what if I don't feel it?" Strasberg said, "You're still being paid. You get through it anyway. Get to the next moment that you do feel." And that's exactly what happens on the dance floor. Can I have a fresh moment every single minute? No. I'm still learning too. So I get through that. If nothing's happening, or maybe I'm looking at Victor and he's not there for whatever reason... maybe he's looking at traffic, I guess I lose that moment, but then I try for the next one. For me, music affects a lot of the dancing. Some pieces make it really hard to muster up some kind of feeling. And then other music, the moment I hear it, I'm just so inspired, and I say, "Oh, I'm so happy to dance to this!" If you get stuck with a piece of music that's not your favorite thing to dance to, you do your best. Of course, we all know there's all kinds of other problems on the floor, like you're bumping into people and you're getting hit in the head or a shoe falls off, or whatever. It's hard to get through those moments, but you do your best.

You're also competing in Standard.

I'm doing Standard and I love it. It's very different for me because it doesn't lend itself as well to where I come from. But the technique of it is fascinating, and I'm doing my best. I don't put in as much time on the standard as I do the Smooth. I go where my strength is, but I feel that Standard is terribly important to everything I do. I did dance Latin when I started, and I'd love to be able to do it all, but there's no time. I work! So I crowd it all in! As a lot of people do.

How many lessons do you take a week?

It varies. The work I do right now is freelance; I prepare witnesses for trials. So it's very different from when I was working a regular television job and I could organize things. So some weeks I'll have lessons on three different days, sometimes two, and then there'll be times when I can't get there at all.

When you first got off camera, did you miss it?

Yes. When I first came to New York, one of the things that I did was teach actors to act in television commercials. And I remember saying to them, "If you love the theatre so much that you can't imagine anything else, then stay with it. But after a few years of knocking around New York, if you can find something else in your life to do, it will probably pay you more money ultimately and you should go there. But if you can't imagine doing anything else, then by all means stay in the theatre." And that's really the way I was. I never stayed in the theatre because of the money, although I happened to get lucky in some of the more lucrative areas of theatre. But it was really for the love of performing. So when I gave that up, that feeling, the need to perform was still so strong in me… I needed to dance for that. I can't imagine stopping the dancing because of that creative need. In 1995 I decided I needed a little more control in my life. You don't have a lot of control when you're working in television news, and you're working Christmas, New Year's, Thanksgiving; it's night work and it's really hard. So I formed a company that prepared witnesses for trial. But the funny thing is, I keep getting dragged back to television any way. I just did Paula Zahn's CNN show a few months ago, and I've been called to comment on the Martha Stewart case. I've done a lot of Court TV recently commenting on various cases. But the dancing is the big thing that now fills the creative need in my life.

When did you first realize that you wanted to be a performer?

I must have been six and I was doing shows in my back yard. There was a place at the corner of my street that made caskets. The boxes that the unfinished caskets came delivered in were really huge and sturdy, so they made great stages. My friends and I would go to the corner and drag these boxes to my back yard and we would use them for stages. I would direct the show, of course, and we'd charge money and have the neighbors come. So it started very early. There was no keeping me out of the theatre! When I went to college, my field was communications as an undergraduate. As a graduate, it was theatre. Then I went back again and became a meteorologist, and was a physics major, so I went around again as an undergrad.

Why did you do that?

Because I was doing commercials for the most part. And in commercials, the minute you get to be 40, you might as well give up. It's really for young people. I saw the handwriting on the wall and thought, "What can I do to stay in television?" The commercial jobs had already begun to fall off. I decided to take one course in meteorology, and thought "Maybe I can do the weather on television," and I loved it. I'd always been in liberal arts and this was hard science. So I went back to school another four years. I became a real meteorologist, and went back to television. Of course, television was very anxious to hire women who were meteorologists, so I walked straight into a job out of school.

What was it like acting in commercials?

I did a commercial for Hills Brothers coffee and all day long we drank coffee. It was about four days before I could go to sleep! Another one was for Lavoris mouthwash. All day long I was putting the Lavoris in my mouth and spitting into a bucket. And commercials take all day to shoot. My first commercial was for Lysol air spray. And they said, "Okay, let's rehearse." Now my line was, "Don't things smell nice?" and I said, "Rehearse one line?" So we rehearsed my one line. It was with a dog and I had to say to the dog, after I sprayed his bed, "Don't things smell nice?" We rehearsed and rehearsed, then came time to shoot it. We did one take and I thought my day was over. Well, advertisers have to get their money's worth. And I cannot tell you how many times that day I said to the dog, "Don't things smell nice?" It was from 8 o'clock in the morning until 5 o'clock at night, saying that same one line.

I also did some industrial theater. That can be as funny as commercials, because industrials are generally musicals. Over the years I did a lot of car companies, electronic companies, and a show for RCA television sets, which we did in Las Vegas. There was a scene in that show where we all had to tap dance down these stairs with little television sets on our heads! I saved the tap shoes! I have them to this day. There were so many funny things over the years.

Do you ever feel when you're out on the floor that you're completely acting? That you just don't want to be there at all?

Never! Never! I love being out there! Give me an audience. And if you want to give me the floor all by myself, I really, really like that! When I first started competing, every now and then, at little comps, there would be times when I would be on the floor alone. I had various friends, who, the minute that would happen to them, would totally go into a tailspin, "My God, I can't possibly be out there alone!" But that's when I was comfortable. When I had the crowd on the floor, I was nervous.

Even when you're not on the floor, you always seem very happy.

I can't tell you where that comes from. I think I am a little bit of a Pollyanna. Extremes are not good, but I'm certainly on the side of more positive than negative. When I work with witnesses, I'm there to find their best qualities. I'm there to help them find what's good about them, because that's what they want to present in court. So I'm always busy looking for good, not bad. Sometimes I work with various lawyers who say, "Oh, wasn't that person awful?" But I loved her! What was awful? The lawyer saw negative things, and I was only working with the positive. So that's kind of how I walk around, just looking for what's good rather than what's bad, including in ballroom dancing. There's an awful lot that you can complain about if you want to complain. I'm certainly not unaware of all the things going on. It's nicer to be happy than to be so worried about all the problems that can occur.

Why would you start a business coaching witnesses? How did you know there was a need?

Well, my field is communications. I started out as an undergraduate with classical communications theory, and that's discussion, debate, public speaking. Every actor in New York has part time work, and my part time work, instead of waiting tables, was preparing business executives to give speeches. So I worked with some top level companies, the upper level executives for the City of New York. There's a great parallel between public speaking and preparing a witness for trial. Most witnesses, when they go to court, have never done that kind of thing before. They're terrified of public speaking, and sometimes they fall into really bad habits. They become tongue-tied. They can't get out their message, so I'm the ultimate cheerleader. Again, looking for what's good. When people realize that they're not all bad, that they do have good things to offer, they gain new confidence. My husband is a lawyer, and I learned a lot about the law from him. Then other lawyers found out about me, and it just sort of grew from there. I do find things in witnesses that the lawyers don't find. When lawyers have what they consider to be "problem" witnesses-the ones who can't or won't follow their lawyers' directions, I can somehow manage to get these witnesses to change and present themselves more effectively.

You are the lone blond boy out there doing the rhythm.

Dan: And I'm going to stay that way! I've had a few people tell me to color my hair dark and I have thought about it over and over and over. Many years ago when it was first suggested, I asked Rufus Dustin, because he is impeccable with his taste. He looked at me and said, "Don't you dare! That's why I look at you. You're different than every guy that walks on that floor. Why would you want to change that?" In addition to that I'm not Latin. I don't look Latin. I have white skin, blond hair and blue eyes. I'll never look Latin so I would probably look completely ridiculous if I dyed my hair black and got brown contacts or something. I'm going to leave it the way it is.

Nicole: Dan is a unique individual and this shows through in his style of dancing and I would never want him to change that.

When you look back at your career from where you started to where you are today, is there anything you would have changed in the process?

Dan: I would say for myself I probably wouldn't change anything because I know that any small change can alter everything in front of you.

Nicole: I always feel things happen for a reason or a purpose. God has always been with me in everything. Having that spiritual strength behind me is very important. I've been through a divorce, which is part of the turmoil I've been going through in the last two years. It taught me to be a much more positive person. Look for the positive in everything and everybody because it's out there.

What are your goals now?

Dan: Go to the top! That's our plan. I'm going to do everything in my power to achieve our goal. As long as I love this and as long as I feel I'm capable of producing the quality and the excitement I'm going to keep dancing. I don't have a plan as to when I will stop. I don't feel we've even begun to peak. With the training we're receiving we're only at about 50%. We have a lot ahead of us.

Nicole: There are obstacles but obstacles are in every part of life. We are growing so much faster with the positive attitude, truly believing that we can be the best that we can be. We just grow and grow. That's what's wonderful about life. It's so exciting. Someone said recently that we were one of the most seasoned couples out there. That really says a lot. It's like someone who's older and has so much wisdom. That puts an edge to our dancing. And we're not the oldest… we're lightly seasoned!

Where are you originally from, Victor?

Victor: I was born in Moldova.

Were you involved in ballroom dancing there?

Victor: I trained originally to be a medical doctor and worked for a short time as a school pediatrician. I switched to competition ballroom dancing because I thought it offered more opportunities.

Did you win any titles?

Victor: We were National Professional Ballroom Champion in both Latin and Standard five times.

Victor, you've been working with Elaine for quite a while. What did you see in Elaine that made you think she was going to be a really good competitor?

Victor: Her ability to learn to dance. She learned very fast. It's unusual for a student to know their routines. It's easy for her to learn because she knows what she's doing. It's not just 100% teacher and zero student. We really are 50 - 50. We plan everything. Plus now she's started to have real fun competing.

Elaine: I don't deny it's fun to win, but for me it's so much about presentation. And you know I enjoy making an audience happy. That's really what it's been about, but hey, winning is a lot of fun!

Do you think other teachers and their students do?

Elaine: I see it! I've seen teachers screaming at their students! I've seen teachers walk away from their students, blaming them for something that happened.

Victor: Sometimes you hear a student say, "I PAY you to remember my routine!"

Elaine: If I make mistakes, Victor knows I didn't do it on purpose. So why get mad at me? I'm really sorry! So we never have a fight.

Does Victor always remember the routine?

Elaine: You know something? He is so consistent. I'm so thrilled when he makes a mistake because it's so rare!

Victor: Usually I change something because of the traffic…

Elaine: I say, "Where are we going?" and "What are we doing?" But he's amazing. He just doesn't make mistakes.

Victor: We don't change the routines a lot. We try to polish and find new ways because just to change everything is no good.

Elaine: Because there's a lot of trust in our partnership, I think I'm reasonably consistent. That comes from the theatre too. There's a discipline to doing the same thing over and over and once you know those routines, you really have to do it, except for the improvisational qualities when there's traffic in the way. But otherwise, I think Victor trusts that I will be there doing what I'm supposed to do as best I can. So there's a lot of trust both ways. I know that he's so solid and will figure out where we belong. Then he kind of lets me go, too. We discuss interpretations of the dances. We're doing the same play.

And do you always agree on what you're trying to interpret at that moment?

Elaine: It's kind of amazing, I talked earlier about learning to express not just with the face and the voice, but using the body as well. And Victor teaches me this. For example, if we're doing waltz and I'm doing some kind of movement, he might say, "That's not romantic enough." Now I have to find the movement that gives the appearance of romance, and then support it with a feeling from the inside. He's teaching me how the body can show these emotions and feelings. We tend to agree.

From talking to Elaine it seems that she is very much in tune with what her body does and what she is trying to do. That's very unusual for a student, isn't it?

Victor: Yes. But today the level of pro/am dancing is so high. The top six students and teachers are fairly equal. What we ask for ourselves as professionals is almost the same as what we ask our students to do.

What's your opinion about all the international world-class dancers competing pro/am?

Elaine: The international influence has raised the level of our pro/am dancing in this country. So I'm not so certain we should worry that much about it. Maybe the students who can afford the international superstars have some kind of advantage; just like someone who can afford the top lawyers in the country have an advantage. But nobody ever said life was going to be perfect or totally fair. The only thing we have to be careful of is perhaps in the Standard where it may be difficult for judges to evaluate what is the student's input in that partnership. With Latin you can see what the student is contributing, and in Smooth you can certainly see what the student is contributing.

Victor: For me it is a big positive, because if these stars are involved the pro/am level will jump even higher. Maybe pro/am dancing will have even more competition. That's only a plus.

When you first came here, you hadn't done pro/am. What did you think of the whole system?

Victor: In general, when I danced with students I felt ashamed. For me it was a little bit like a shock. But that was long time ago. Now it's different. And you can see the students get the same quality of teaching; of coaching... the best coaches in the world coach bronze students. Many of the top dancers move to the United States because there are more jobs here. The level of dancing now is very high. It's almost professional pro/am level.

So you've changed your mind completely?

Victor: Completely.

Has this been a good direction for you, since you're not competing professionally any more?

Victor: Almost like I didn't feel a gap. Sometimes when pros finish, there's a gap, you don't know how you should proceed. For me actually there wasn't. My attitude was, "I'm trying to keep the same thing that I did professionally."

How many comps do you do a year?

Victor: We try to dance at least once a month.

Elaine: It depends on my business and my income! If you want to know how my business is going, count the number of comps I do! The more the income, the more comps! I try to pay for my dancing myself. My husband will pay for other things. He'll make a contribution, but I try to do it with my business. So my business supports my hobby! A very expensive hobby!

What are your goals now for your future dancing?

Victor: Improvement, improvement, improvement.

What would you like to improve, specifically?

Elaine: I had a conversation the other day with another one of the top pro/am smooth dancers. We were talking about our goals and she said a really interesting thing, and it's probably my goal too. One day, we'd like to have a tape-Victor says it's impossible-but we'd like to have a tape where we could look at it and say, "That's almost professional!"

Victor: You know what I said, "And that day, you have to retire!"

Elaine: My real goal with dancing is to see what else I can learn. How much more can I improve? I want to get better, better, better. That's really my goal. So far, I tackle every new thing that comes along, and it's just a lot of fun finding what your body can do.

Do you think all of her qualities are fairly even? There's not one thing that you feel is lacking right now?

Victor: I don't think so. I can find some gaps because we compare all the time... that's why we go to competitions to see what works.

Elaine: Some of the same people that we've been competing against over the years are also working very, very hard and are getting better. So you really can't stop. You can't just say, "Well, I won a few years ago, that's it." Even when we win, we look at the tape and say, "Gotta fix this, gotta fix the other thing," there's always so much to work on.

Victor: That's one of the reasons why I make her to compete in the younger age category. I don't want her to relax because she is first.

What do you think is so special about Victor as a teacher?

Elaine: We have a lot of fun together. Victor takes it seriously, which I think is wonderful. I love when I see teachers out there competing just as hard as their students. Those are the teachers that really attract my eye and impress me on the floor. That's the wonderful attitude that Victor has. He dances just as hard as if he were competing professionally. The best pro/am teachers, including Victor, are the ones who truly get out there and become a partnership with their students.