A new Aurora dancing studio, helmed by a pair of world champions, is aiming to create a “national movement” and teach the next generation of ballroom dancers.
Thomas Zinger, 21, and Sarah Stolarsky, 19, have been dancing together for a decade, and in that time have won 19 Canadian championships and two world championships across three different categories: Latin, Ballroom and ten dance.
Now, the pair have opened up T&S Dance Club, running twice weekly dance classes out of the Addison Dance Hall in Aurora Town Square for children.
“We're trying to create a national movement to really give dancing another phase, because, especially after COVID, we lost a lot of dancers, because we we couldn't practise together,” said Zinger. “There were no competitions, so a lot of people stopped dancing. And now in 2025, we're really trying to bring it all back like it was.”
The pair currently teach the classes in Aurora twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday evenings, but may expand in the future, with potentially adult classes to come. They also teach students in Vaughan, with their youngest pupil aged three while their oldest is 12 years old.
“I personally really like to teach kids because, first of all you can see the progress that they make," said Stolarsky. "So, it's satisfying because you see that you're making a difference in their life."
Both Stolarsky and Zinger said besides tearing up the dance floor, students also learn other useful skills through ballroom dancing.
“Nowadays everybody's sitting behind the phone," said Zinger. "It's just kind of sad to see that people are just like really anti-social."
"What's great about ballroom dance is you dance in a pair of two," he added. "So there is always teamwork, you always have to communicate with your partner."
Thomas Zinger and Sarah Stolarsky perform at the opening of their new ballroom dancing school, T&S Dance Club @AuroraTodayca pic.twitter.com/liIDzTAIpB
— bailey (@moreton_bailey) March 19, 2025
But the old adage about teaching does not apply to Stolarsky and Zinger. The pair are balancing teaching with their own competition schedule, starting their days early to fit in six to eight hours of training a day, plus time spent in the gym, as well as teaching, and then travelling to competitions on the weekend. The pair just returned from a competition in Italy.
Having grown up as dancing prodigies, the pair are now competing against adults, most recently representing Canada in the final of the 10 dance world championships this past November.
“We really like to do 10,” said Stolarsky. “First of all, because it's challenging and we don't like things to be easy. We always try to challenge ourselves. But also we find that we use a lot, like from ballroom to Latin, from Latin to ballroom, it really helps us. It's very difficult because we have to train much more. But we enjoy it.”
New students are welcome, with lessons held at Aurora Town Square in the Addison Dance Hall, at 50 Victoria St.
More information can be found online.