Johannesburg - Only 18 months ago, well-known South African dancer Ryno van den Berg was struggling to make ends meet at his Pretoria dance teaching studio, which he’d had for 25 years.
Disillusioned, he decided to take a leap of faith and go and teach dance in New York. It was an inspired move, because since then, he’s been immersed in an adventure that not even he could have dreamt up, a Hollywood-like fantasy of glamorous world travel, luxury living, earning US dollars and, not least, finding love.
Van den Berg is the six-time undefeated South African Latin American and ballroom dance champion, and has represented South Africa in 13 world dance championships. Yet these trophies never gave him financial security or lasting love. It was only when he actively sought out a different path that his life really turned around.
While in New York, Van den Berg clinched a dancing contract on the American-owned cruise line, Princess Cruises, so last April he and his Russian dance partner Beatrix Royda were cruising to Hawaii, Tahiti and Bora Bora island. When he returned, he moved his base to Los Angeles, and was due to cruise again in May, to Alaska over three months.
Royda had different plans, however, so two weeks before setting off, Van den Berg found himself without a dance partner. “I was home in Pretoria for a break and in desperation I sent off a message on Facebook saying I was looking for a dance partner. Without one I would have lost my contract,” he recalls.
As fate would have it, seasoned Russian dancer Mira-Elena Tokarenko, living in Hong Kong, had recently split from her brother-cum-dance partner. She responded to Van den Berg’s message and two days later she was making plans to meet him back in LA.
“We arrived together in LA and the minute we met, I knew instantly she was my partner, in every sense of the word. She’s a great, disciplined dancer, but she is also a soft, generous, very refined person,” he says.
Still, although the chemistry was there, it wasn’t a good idea to act on it right away, he says. “Many dance couples are involved beyond the dance floor, but I am wary of this because it often ends badly. So we played it cool. And anyway, we had only eight days to work out five different 15-minute shows for the cruise,” says Van den Berg.
The shows went off perfectly on the three-month Alaska cruise, and by the end of it, Van den Berg and Tokarenko were a committed couple. But now new decisions had to be made, because they lived on either side of the planet. Footloose and fancy free, Van den Berg decided he’d go and live in Hong Kong, where he’d teach dancing in between cruise contracts.
They weren’t there long before it was time to board a ship again. Their sexy, well-synchronised dance shows were hot enough to land the couple with a new cruising contract, this time with the super luxurious Crystal Cruises, so off they set again last December, to the Caribbean for two months on the Crystal Serenity.
“It’s an incredible lifestyle. The Crystal Serenity is like a floating Sandton City shopping mall. It has 19 decks with 1 500 crew and 3 500 passengers. Even if you’re with someone, you can disappear for four days and not see them.
“And as entertainers we are given full passenger status on ship, so we are not regarded as crew. We don’t pay for anything onboard, and we get flown to the launch locations each time we embark on a cruise. We’ve visited some of the world’s most exotic places for free while earning $4 000 (R48 700) each a month. There’s no stress. It’s like a living a dream,” says Van den Berg.
For this handsome return, Van den Berg and Tokarenko must put on a show for the passengers every third day, training every day for four to five hours in the beautiful passenger gym onboard. They also oversee the entertainment hosting programme, so must dance with, or teach, passengers as requested.
It’s not a lifestyle that would suit everyone, of course. Single crew members fall into “fake relationships” not based in reality, and the cruise ship life is not conducive to marriage or children, says Van den Berg.
“You can be in beautiful places but feel lonely and homesick, because you are onboard for two or three months each time,” he reveals. “We are just very lucky to have found each other and share the same dream, to compete, dance in shows and travel.”
The couple board the Crystal Serenity again in December, again on its Mediterranean cruise.
Next year, they do this trip again, in August, and are also booked on its two-month cruise to Australia, the Fiji islands and New Zealand.
International dance competitions are filling up their bookings in between. “We have just competed in the Blackpool Dance Festival where we did very well, and in November we will compete in the SA Open Dance Championships in Cape Town as well as the Dutch Open Dance Championships,” says Van den Berg.
To prepare for the competitions, Van den Berg and Tokarenko get coached in the various countries these take place in. “These coaches, usually former dance champions, cost $250-$300 for 45 minutes, but it’s worth it, because we both love competing. Shows on cruise liners, and competing… that’s our passion, our lives,” he says.
At the same time, Van den Berg, now 45, knows he won’t always be able to do competitive dancing. “My plan is for Elena (she is 36) and I to retire from competitions in 2017, but we’ll dance until we can’t walk! Then I’ll become a cruise director, the guy in charge of all the entertainment,” he laughs. And where will they be based by then?
“For three months now, home has been Hong Kong, in a small apartment, which is why I’m able to represent Hong Kong in these international dance competitions. We won’t retire there though. We have to work our butts off teaching, because it’s so expensive.
“But I can’t foresee that we will end up in South Africa either. I love my country, and having travelled the world, South Africa still offers a great lifestyle. But the problem is crime, and for Elena it’s a big issue, because in Russia you can walk around freely as a woman, even late at night, and she is not used to not being able to do that here. So I was thinking about maybe settling in Australia,” says Van den Berg.
That’s another few trips around the world away, though, with a love that arrived late in his life. “I’ve been single most of my life, so I know what I have, and she arrives in South Africa (this) week, to stay with me and my family in Pretoria,” he smiles.
The Star