Today we’d like to introduce you to Taya Egorova
Hi Taya, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was fortunate to be born in a family with parents who do their best to help their kids find their passion and purpose in life. From early childhood, I attempted almost every single sport and art. Dancing came into my life at the age of 4, and while different activities kept changing to new ones nearly every year, dancing never left my life. In the beginning, I started with ballroom dancing and ballet, but after a few years, I realized that I did not enjoy wearing little pink skirts and white tights. This is when I finally discovered street dance – my passion and purpose. It took quite some time to search for the optimal location and mentors to train in Moscow. However, in 2017 I auditioned and was selected to join Apes Crew (one of the groups in the Lil’Fam community). Joining this dancing team made me realize that this is the best possible environment to channel my love for dance. Our mentors introduced us to various street styles, taught us how to monetize our talent and skills, and showed us there is nothing impossible and unreachable. I started teaching and choreographing for a different dance team from the Lil’Fam community at the age of 15. My mentors taught me how to effectively teach and helped me build a reputation and networks to begin hosting classes in different cities across Russia.
As for the Apes Crew, we competed and won numerous high-level competitions in Russia year after year. For this reason, we set ourselves the goal of winning the championship in the USA. The training process was incredibly difficult, yet it served as the most fulfilling experience of my life. During this period, all dancers in the team were between 12 and 17 years old. What I find the most fascinating is that no one was forced to train by their parents – all the dancers came to the studio with enthusiasm, despite being on holidays or weekends. Dancing through pain, soreness, tears, and fatigue became a routine but no one ever gave up or complained because we all wanted to achieve the same goal.
In the summer of 2018, we landed in Los Angeles for the World Of Dance Finals. A huge amount of money and effort was spent but it was worth it. All because the gold medal was ours. And guess what? We repeated this success in 2019.
After the first trip to Los Angeles, I have already envisioned myself living and dancing here. I decided that once I was done with high school in Moscow, I’d do everything in my power to move to the City of Angels and become a professional working dancer in the industry.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Choosing to live your dream is never an easy road but I was ready for it. In 2019, I started planning and researching how to accomplish my goal of moving to LA. The best option for me was to get into a university by applying for a student visa and getting a Bachelor’s degree in Performing Arts. This is so after the program is over, I could get an OPT visa to start working in the dancing field. The first challenge was to get accepted into one of the Universities in LA. The main problem was that all the schools that I was applying to had ballet and contemporary dance as part of the audition and I was a novice in these styles. Therefore, 6 months before all the auditions began I found two teachers who trained me in ballet and contemporary dance so that I could pass the auditions. Did I love it? Absolutely not. Was it worth it? Definitely.
I got accepted into 3 out of 6 schools and decided to go to the California Institute of the Arts. This was supposed to be a moment when there was nothing but happiness but COVID had other plans. I was supposed to move to LA in August 2020 but that is when we got the news that the whole first year of school is going to be completely online.
A year goes by and I’m excited to finally go and dance there in person. But life said, “It is too easy, Taya.” Political conflict between Russia and the US began to rise and the only US embassy in Moscow closed, which meant that I couldn’t get my visa. I had to travel to another country and apply for a visa in Kazakhstan and luckily got it approved, but it wasn’t the end of the struggle because the US stopped letting people without specific vaccines into the country (of course the Russian vaccine was not approved). So I packed my bags and went to Serbia twice to get the vaccine that would work out.
Finally, in the middle of my sophomore year, I could go to the city of my dreams. That is when the realization that I was leaving everything and everyone behind hit me: all my friends, students, family, my partner, and work. I had to start from 0 again but I was willing to do it because I had a very clear image of where and who I wanted to be.
I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Dance in May 2024, now I have a year on OPT to participate in as much dance-related work as I can and figure out how to stay in LA and keep living my dream.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Besides industry jobs like dancing and choreographing for music videos and performances, I’m teaching private lessons to people of different ages, levels, and goals. As a result of having experience in various dance styles from high heels to krump and teaching, I can create a program for individual students that will work most effectively to achieve their personalized goals and maintain enjoyment. My main purpose in teaching is to make my students fall in love with dancing.
I’ll tell you a little secret! Now, I plan to open groups for everyone who wants to learn to dance and meet new people! So be sure to follow me on Instagram and stay tuned for updates!
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
Only a few people are aware that I got accepted into a university in Los Angeles and the University of International Relations in Moscow at the same time. If I couldn’t move to the US to pursue a dance career, now I would be working with oil and natural gas… I’m incredibly glad it turned out in favor of my dream.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/taya.egorova_/
Image Credits
Alissa Roseborough
Norris Photography
