How Hollywood dancer Katya Virshilas is teaching ballroom to new generations – after appearing in Shall We Dance with Jennifer Lopez, she moved to Hong Kong and opened her own studio …
- Former star of reality series Strictly Come Dancing, Virshilas has worked with Antonio Banderas and Richard Gere, and appeared in TV shows like Smallville and Supernatural
- Becoming Canada’s national ballroom champion at age 16, she married fellow dancer Klaus Kongsdal, with whom she opened Ballroom Bees – and keeps time with her Rolex Oyster Perpetual
Former Strictly Come Dancing star, Canadian national ballroom champion and choreographer for So You Think You Can Dance, Katya Virshilas moved to Hong Kong four years ago – and soon after that co-founded Ballroom Bees alongside her Danish husband, former world ballroom champion, Klaus Kongsdal.
“We were living in London, I was pregnant with our first child and I wasn’t touring. We were on the couch watching Game of Thrones when my husband said, ‘I think we should move to Hong Kong’,” says the mother of two. It was not such a random idea as Kongsdal had a lot of work in China and East Asia at that time. It was not such a hard decision to up sticks either, as Virshilas was used to moving – born in Lithuania and raised in Israel, she moved to Canada at age 13.
It was in Canada that she fell in love with ballroom dancing and became the national champion by age 16. She then got into the film industry, where perfect timing played an important role.