Social media hunt for dancing partner sparked SA-Russian love match [Watch]

It was a match made on Facebook for Salt Rock dancing duo Ryno van den Berg and Elena Tokarenko when both were on the hunt for dancing partners.

What followed was love at first sight.

Cue the music and paint the scene of a South African man and Russian woman boarding respective flights for California after speaking for hours on the phone one Sunday night.

Eight years later, the duo continue to dance together while running the Passion for Dance studio in Salt Rock, occasionally performing internationally.

For Elena, dancing was a way of life first discovered at the age of seven when she and her brother Sergey took to the art form.

“It was in 1985 that we started dancing together. We went into competitive dancing right away and won competitions from the start,” said Elena, who hails from Nalchik, a city on the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains.

How Ryno picked up on dancing was a bit more humorous.

After completing matric in 1988, Ryno joined the SA Air Force’s military brass band in Pretoria. He noticed a friend of his in the band would jump the fence each day to sneak off.

Ryno later learned the fence-hopper taught social dancing in Sunnyside.

“I joined him the next day, jumping over the fence and hiking to Sunnyside. The rest is history,” said Ryno, who was eventually caught red-handed by a brigadier.

He wiggled his way out of the dilemma by offering foxtrot lessons for the brigadier and his wife, which saw him granted permission to teach and he no longer had to sneak out.

Before meeting, they had individually won a variety of dancing competitions, but it was in 2014 while searching for a new partner that Ryno stumbled upon Elena’s Facebook post.

“I could not believe my eyes when I read through her CV. It was truly very impressive. I was over the moon when we met as I knew this was a partnership which would go the distance,” he said.

Elena immediately fell in love with Ryno’s passion for dancing.

“He was different from the other men – charming and always positive.”

Eight days after meeting they were already doing a dancing gig on board a cruise ship, madly in love.

The couple tied the knot in Salt Rock, setting down roots here and running their studio since 2019.

As to what the future holds, they are preparing for a dancing tour in the United States in August, and then shows planned for Holland and Hong Kong.

Locally, they plan to stage a James Bond-themed dance show on June 3 at the Salt Rock Country Club.

Contact Ryno at 079 188 5768.

Follow The North Coast Courier on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & YouTube for breaking news

Telegram Broadcast Service: https://t.me/joinchat/yJULuN8NaCs5OGM0