For many high school and middle school students, their teenage years are full of sporting events, plays, musicals or cheerleading competitions. For the Lougin siblings, Daniel and Sofiy, their teenage years have led them on a different path: the dance floor. 

The brother-and-sister team from Glencoe is the No. 10 ballroom dancing team in the country in their age group.

While many ballroom dancers may start with professional training from a young age, the Lougins’ start was a little more fun.

It all started at Daniel’s 6th birthday party: His mom put music on in the backyard, he started dancing to it, his mom signed him up for dance classes and a dancing career was launched. Soon after, Sofiy, now 16 and a sophomore at New Trier, saw how much her younger brother loved to dance, became jealous (according to her brother) and joined him. For the two, becoming partners was an easy decision.

“Here, there’s a huge problem with finding a boy partner and I wanted to dance but didn’t have a boy partner and I couldn’t find anybody at my age so we decided to dance together,” Sofiy said. “It’s comfortable dancing with your brother because it’s family. We decided that it’s the best choice.”

 

Like many other competitions, ballroom dancing is also divided into age groups. With Sofiy being 16, 13 year-old Daniel competes in an age group consisting of dancers between the ages of 15-16. While competing against older dancers may scare some competitors, it hasn’t scared Daniel.

“Yeah, it’s a little bit of a challenge because these older boys have more experience and they also stand out more on the dance floor, which puts a little more competition on me, but also pushes me to work harder,” he said.

Ballroom dancing is broken into International Style and American Style competition dances, which are performed mainly in the United States and Canada. The Lougin siblings prefer to perform in the International Style dances.

“There are two styles we do in International, Latin and Standard,” Sofiy added. “In Latin, my favorite dance will probably be cha-cha and in Standard, I really like fox trot.”

“I really like Fox trot in standard and pasodoble in Latin,” Daniel said.

Standard is full framed — when the partner’s arms are touching the entire time and their torsos are together — the entire time and consists of waltz, tango, Vietnamese waltz, fox trot and quick step. Girls wear long dresses, while men wear tuxedoes or tail coats. Latin involves more open dancing, and dancers are not always touching. 

Daniel and Sofiy perform at least once a month, traveling all over the country, including competitions in California, Utah, Michigan, Illinois and New York. Since 2011, the two have been placing first in competitions in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, while also winning competitions in California, Nevada, Michigan and Minnesota. The number of teams in a competition may vary, but when it gets to nationals, there are up to 100 teams participating for the title. Competitions go an entire weekend, from Friday-Sunday, forcing the two to miss school, but it doesn’t seem to have had an effect on their schoolwork.

“We’re always missing school for dance,” the elder Lougin sibling said. “Traveling to New York for lessons is usually on a Monday or Tuesday and then competitions we leave Fridays, so I do miss quite a lot of school.

“A lot of my teachers didn’t believe I would do well [with handling travel and school], but I have straight As, so my teachers can’t really have a problem with that.”

Daniel is as successful in the classroom as his sister.

“For me, the teachers were always OK with me, but since I also have straight As,” he said. “The teachers don’t have a problem with me leaving, as long as I keep on doing my missing work and email them about what I need to do over the trip.”

To get as successful as the Lougins have become, a lot of time has been spent practicing, in Chicago and elsewhere across the country. This includes recently changing coaches to Tetyana Oliynik and practicing for at least two hours every day. 

But that’s not all the two do to prepare themselves for competitions. 

“We practice here but we travel to New York once a month for lectures and lessons,” Sofiy said. “We go to Brooklyn Dancesport Club, where one or two days we take a lot of lessons, come back here and practice what we’ve learned. Sometimes guest coaches from New York and California and other states will come here and we’ll take lessons with them.”

While the two have had a great deal of success at a young age, neither is sure how dance will fit into their future. 

“I have two choices, either become a doctor or a dancer and I’m going in both directions right now,” Sofiy said. “I want to be a doctor and a dancer but I’m just seeing how my future goes right now. First I wanted to be a surgeon, but now I want to go into sports medicine so I can be involved with dance.”

Daniel has even more time before making any career decisions, but that hasn’t stopped him from thinking about his future.

“I also love to dance but I think I’m doing dance to help me get into a good college,” the younger Lougin said. “I really want to get into finance but considering my love for finance, I want to keep this love going.”

And with all of their success, it’s easy to see why.