By Alyse Mier
Photography by Stefania Orru
Latin ballroom dancing champion Maksim Chmerkovskiy, known by millions for his performances on Dancing With the Stars, brought some ballroom dancing heat to Miami this week with the opening of SWAY: A Dance Trilogy.
Maksim and Valentin Chmerkovskiy, and Tony Dovolani were joined by DWTS professional Peta Murgatroyd, Olympian Meryl Davis and actress Rumer Willis for a five-show run at the historic Olympia Theater in downtown Miami.
SWAY gave the audience a glimpse into the lives of Maks, Val and Dovolani and their varied talents in dance genres such as conventional ballroom, hip-hop, rumba, salsa and cha cha.
“SWAY was born because we had the opportunity to do it. It was choreographed in-house by two of our Dance With Me choreographers and the cast was made up of over 70 employees from our six locations. It quickly became a show that was bigger than us and we decided to do it two more times. Now we’re in Miami performing only five shows during Art Basel,” said Maks.
Maks and Dance With Me Studios have partnered with Alfalit in efforts to eradicate human suffering caused by illiteracy. Dance With Me Studios has used its platform with SWAY to help create awareness for this cause. A percentage of ticket sales from SWAY, associated golf tournament and dance camp benefitted Alfalit International.
“Without education we wouldn’t be able to do what we do, so I wanted to be able to give back to people who don’t have that opportunity themselves,” said Maks.
For more information, visit swayshow.com