Learn from the words of experience of this acclaimed duo.
In the vibrant world of Latin ballroom dance, Andrei Kozlovsky and Nino Dzneladze stand as a dynamic duo embodying the epitome of grace, skill, and passion. Representing America, this talented Professional Latin Dance pair has captured the hearts of audiences worldwide with their electrifying performances, blending precise footwork with undeniable chemistry on the dance floor.
As they embark on their journey to showcase their finest talent on the international stage, Andrei and Nino's dedication to their craft, together with their unwavering commitment to excellence, serves as an inspiration to aspiring dancers everywhere.
It was our privilege to sit down with them for a chat, as they prepared for the 5th Brillante. Read on to learn about how they came together, who keeps them inspired, little known traits they have, and more!
We are very excited to welcome you both to Singapore for the first time! What are you looking forward to the most?
Andrei: Well, first of all, we love to be coming. We are looking forward to getting to know the people, the culture, and we're looking forward to sharing our art with all the people there.
Nino: Yeah, I agree. We are very excited and cannot wait to perform, to feel the crowd and just give them the best dancing we can!
Awesome! What can the crowd expect from your special performance?
Andrei: We're working on some new shows! There is going to be some interesting new music, some new songs and some…
Nino: intricate details…
Andrei: Yeah, some details that I hope everybody will like, because we're really working hard on them. We can’t wait to share it with you.
Nino: It’s gonna be just fire!
That’s amazing, because our next question happens to be connected to what you just said! This year, our night event is themed Fire & Ice. We were just about to ask - when you dance, do you more often feel like you embody fire, or ice? So… are you sticking to fire?
Nino: Well, that’s what I said! (laughs)
Andrei: I guess it’s a balance. If one feels fire, another has to be ice, so we're switching between one and the other.
Nino: Depends on the mood, you know?
Andrei: Depends on the day, yeah. There's gonna be some fire, there's gonna be some ice.
Gotcha. Moving on to learning a little bit more about you both. Which would you say is your favourite dance to perform right now? I know it changes sometimes…
Nino: That’s so hard, because it changes almost every day. Of course, I can say that for myself, I feel more connected to Rumba. It's always been my dance and it feels like, I know this dance. I just feel very connected to it. Yeah, but it also kind of changes as you practise everyday and grow…
Andrei: I always say that we have five kids - three girls and two boys. Cha Cha, Samba and Rumba are the girls and then Paso Doble and Jive are the boys, so we have five kids that we're constantly trying to evolve with and… to give them the best attention.
I love all the dances that we do, and sometimes I love just to see how they develop. Even when you leave one behind and you’re spending more time on another to develop it, it's a process… and I personally love all of them equally.
Of course, we couldn’t possibly ask you to choose between your children! Who would you say are some of your inspirations, both on and off the dance floor?
Andrei: My biggest inspiration is Nino Dzneladze.
Nino: Oh, come on! (laughs) Okay yeah, it probably sounds cheesy, but because we spend so much time with each other, we kind of feed off of each other.
I can say that yeah, my partner inspires me because, for example, what Andrei has… that dedication for work, that will, that strength and power… you look at it and you're like, whoa, I want to do the same thing!
You feed off of that. Yeah, I would say my inspiration is the man who stands in front of me every day…but you said me first! (laughs)
Andrei: Yeah, we are each other’s biggest fans and I think this drives us a lot. A lot of things that we've done so far in our partnership, for most of it, it was just the two of us, so we're probably the most thankful to each other for where we are at this moment together.
How did you both come together?
Andrei: Oh, that's a story. Are you ready to write a book or an article? (laughs) Well, long story short, I was Nino's teacher, when she was 16. I was 23 and had just moved to LA. I went to this studio and I was this new teacher.
She was dancing with a boy her age. I started teaching them… but nobody knew her. She was tremendous already, but she was kind of sheltered from everybody.
I was trying to promote her and let people see her talent, and I was always hoping that she's gonna make it and the whole world is gonna know how good she is, which… has happened!
And then, eight years later, we started dancing together. There were a lot of other things along the way too.
Nino: Yeah, we have known each other for 10 years.
Andrei: Yeah, which like I said, is worth more than just an article. We have a long, long story and now, happily, we're together as a couple.
Nino: Finally.
Andrei: Finally, and we're married - we have a wedding this summer. We're extremely happy and of course, to dance together on top of that and fulfill our dreams on the floor together…we couldn't be more happy.
That’s wonderful! Yes, we saw the video of your proposal on the plane…
Andrei: Oh yeah, that was a stressful day for me! (laughs)
It’s lovely to hear you speak about each other, so while we’re on the topic, Andrei, what is something that people might be surprised to know about Nino?
Andrei: Well, she’s extremely shy, and she really likes to sleep.
Nino: Definitely a sleeper.
Andrei: Yeah she loves it, genuinely. And yes, she's very shy. Maybe you can't really tell on the dance floor, because she has this very extravagant and wild kind of look to her, but she's very, very shy and a very intimate person. She’s like a little flower.
Nino: Yeah, that’s what I am…
How about you, Nino? What is something people would be surprised to learn about Andrei?
Nino: You know, you see Andrei on the floor in this bubbly, free and carefree type of way, but you will be surprised at how disciplined he actually is.
If he has a goal, he is going to reach that goal. It's crazy to see how free-spirited he is on the floor, yet once when it gets to behind the scenes, he's on top of his game.
Andrei: Thank you, dear. You make me better in that department.
It’s all about balance, isn’t it? Like you mentioned before.
Nino: Yeah!
What would you say is the best piece of advice you have received as a dancer?
Andrei: It's difficult to point out one particular advice, honestly. I was fortunate enough to work with the greatest teachers the industry has ever had.
Even beyond industry, I had a lot of teachers from different styles, and it's probably not a single piece of advice that helped, but the teachers themselves.
Teachers who led by example, teachers who could motivate me with just their eyes, the way they stood, their posture, their energy, you know? There are so many people who have influenced me in different ways at certain times.
Like I said, it is not advice in terms of a few magic words, but rather the way my teachers carried themselves, the way they can just look at you and inspire you, you know?
So yeah, I would say that.
Nino: There have definitely been many advices. My teacher, Donnie Burns, for example, always said, “Don't listen to too many people. Focus. It’s like you’re a mouse, focused on the cheese.”
Yeah, so narrow your outlook. Look at that goal and just go for it. Don’t listen to so many opinions. That helped me a lot.
You know, as a dancer, you hear so much, right? What this person thinks, what that person thinks. Sometimes, you lose yourself, and you go down these different roads.
You have to come back to yourself and what you want — what your dancing is. You just have to focus on it and just go for it. Go on your own road.
That's all I can say.
Thank you so much! Has there been advice that people have given you that you later felt was… not actually good advice?
Nino: Fake it till you make it! I cannot fake it, I'm sorry! (laughs) It’s all real. This face is going to tell you exactly what it’s thinking, so for me, that advice was just a big no.
Andrei: Honestly, I can get maybe twenty bad advices in a day, and a single good one, and I'm happy with that.
Bad advice doesn't always mean a bad intention, right? Maybe people want to help, but only you know where you're at, in your career, in your day, in your preparation, and you just filter. You filter everything and…
Nino: Make your own decision.
Andrei: Yeah, I'll take the one good advice that will help me, out of twenty others. I'll take it any day.
While we’re on the topic of advice, before this interview, we asked some of our dancers what they’d like to know more about. They mentioned that sometimes, we practice relentlessly, only to feel like we are not improving.
They wondered if professional dancers like you encounter similar problems, and if you have any advice on coming out of that stagnant place. Have you ever felt that way?
Andrei: Yeah, yeah. I think first of all, sometimes… don't practise? (laughs) If you feel like you're hitting a wall with your preparation, sometimes, just let it go, take a couple days off and come back. All of a sudden, you might feel that the things that didn't work out earlier, the things you practised again and again and again and didn't feel better about, you are now able to do.
Sometimes, letting go and coming back later lets you get that fresh outlook. You realise that those three days that you didn't practice, your body was actually digesting that. You were in fact getting better at it, as you were just resting. Sometimes there's a little bit of a delayed reaction to things.
Another thing to take a look at is approach. Maybe you should come and look at the situation from a different angle. Maybe you're just looking at it through your eyes, you know. Try asking your partner.
I always say that your partner should be your best coach because she's always there, she can always take a look and give you advice from her side. So maybe just change the way you look at situation. What do you think?
Nino: Yeah, I agree with that, going about it a different way, or you know…asking a teacher for help? I’m not too sure…
Andrei: For Nino, it’s a difficult question to answer because everything always works out for her! (laughs) I'm kidding, I’m kidding…
Nino: Well, I think what you said, taking a break, would definitely help.
Andrei: Yeah, suddenly you look around like, “oh, now it works!”
Nino: Like a lightbulb moment, you get something. Yeah, I agree with you.
What else can we look forward to from both of you in the next year? Are there any goals or aspirations that you’d like to share with us?
Andrei: Well, we had a disappointing beginning of the year. We went to England for the UK open, but unfortunately Nino got sick and we couldn't dance.
We don't have that many competitions now, unfortunately, where different guys from different federations can all compete together, so it was kind of upsetting… but at the same time, it couldn't be more motivating. We are extremely fired up for this year.
Honestly, in terms of results, we're not going to give you any promises. It's not in our hands. But in terms of delivering good dancing, we can guarantee you that we're going take it to the next level.
Nino: Definitely. We're working on dancing all the time, improving our skills… because you want to impress, you want to touch people. So there are many aspects and many details that we will be working on.
Andrei: In December, it was a year since we had our first competition. I feel like this first year, we spent a lot on really learning each other, in different situations - on the practice floor, on the competition floor…
Nino: The first year was also very difficult because we were both coming out of long-term dancing relationships. It was so hard to start from the beginning, you know, after eight or ten years.
Andrei: Yeah, and you have to start from the beginning.
Nino: It was so hard to think of routines, for example. You want to get everything fast, but you can't get everything fast because it takes time, right? Everything comes with time. So yeah, for the first year, it was about gelling together.
Andrei: Yes, and being patient in going forward. We did not want to take a step back from competing, even though we knew that we couldn’t get everything perfect. We had to settle, knowing that ahhh, we’re not there yet!
Although we knew what else we could do, we had to go compete and get a different perspective on where we were at, and be patient with where we were in our preparation. I feel like we’ve gone through that path already. Now, we're in a different phase and just… super, super excited!
Thank you so much for sharing all these exciting details with us! We look forward to seeing what else is in store for you.
Final question before we wrap up - what words of encouragement do you have for our competitors at the 5th Brillante DanceSport Championship?
Andrei: Well, first of all, we are really looking forward to meeting the dancers and we want to wish everybody luck and success. We can't wait to see you.
The words of encouragement that I have for all the dancers are that… our careers are short, compared to other artists, so enjoy. Enjoy your time on the floor because it cannot compare to anything else, and never will.
It’s a very unique endeavour, what we are doing. Enjoy it, first of all, and give it your all.
Nino: Enjoy, but work hard!
Andrei: Yeah, enjoy but work hard. Just don't have any expectations from anyone except yourself.
Nino: What’s that thing you like to say? Your expectations are your problems?
Andrei: Well, yeah, there are different ways to look at it, but just… expect everything from yourself, not from judges, or audience, or anybody else. Rely on yourself.
Nino: Right, work hard. All the success will come to you, whether it's sooner or later. Don't wait for it, you know? Narrow your focus and just go for the goal. That's it!
Wonderful, thank you so much once again for sitting down with us today, and sharing these amazing insights. We can’t wait to see you in April!
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