TEAM

Svetlana's pole dance story began in Belarus, Minsk, where she was born and raised. When she was 25 years old (2014), driven by a desire to lose weight, the girl started attending modern dance classes. In the studio she attended, there were only 2 poles in the corner and a large group of 10 girls were sharing them while exercising. After watching their tricks from the side for a while, Svetlana could not resist and signed up for the group. Around the same time, she had to appear on stage again with the modern dance girls during a studio concert. Svetlana remembers this experience especially vividly: "it was my second time on stage and the feeling was simply amazing, it seemed like this was how I could make myself meaningful in this big world."

 From that moment on, events took a turn for the worse. As pole sport became more popular, the number of poles in the studio increased (up to 5), and opportunities to do more sports appeared, and Svetlana did not waste them. Seeing the girl's talent and enthusiasm, the studio director asked her to perform at the concert with a solo pole performance. Svetlana remembers that although it was terribly scary, it was also the most wonderful emotions. After this third time on stage, Svetlana simply "caught the hook" - she decided to prepare a duet performance with her friend, because it is even more fun to do sports together. Then she participated in the Belarusian pole competition with her and won 1st place. Inspired and motivated by the victory, the girl persuaded another friend to join the adventure and again participated in the competition as a duet, this time taking 2nd place.

 All this time, Svetlana focused on the pole sport category and didn't even really know what pole exotic was. She didn't know until exotic classes appeared at the studio in 2018 and she received an offer to train a newly selected group. Svetlana opens up: "I really thought that pole exotic was easier than pole sport. I had no idea about dancing on a platform, how to perform smooth movements, maintain beautiful lines, or how to land correctly on the ground. It was only when I encountered it that I realized that these are completely different things, so in order to be able to train girls, I studied a lot and independently." Full of enviable stubbornness, Svetlana participated in the exotic championship in 2020, even before the global pandemic, and took 3rd place among many professional dancers. Just at that time, the political situation in Belarus worsened, protests broke out, and Svetlana had to make the difficult decision to leave the country. Having moved to Vilnius in March 2021, in May she was already practicing independently at Flame, and in September she danced an exotic solo at our autumn party. So despite all the difficulties, Svetlana still found ways to keep pole dancing in her life in a new country and a new studio.