Elena Grinenko is a professional

ballroom dance Ballroom dance is a set of partner dances, which are enjoyed both socially and competitively around the world, mostly because of its performance and entertainment aspects. Ballroom dancing is also widely enjoyed on stage, film, and television. ...

champion, choreographer, and instructor. She is best known as one of the professional dancers on the American television series ''

Dancing with the Stars ''Dancing with the Stars'' is the name of various international television series based on the format of the British TV series '' Strictly Come Dancing'', which is distributed by BBC Studios, the commercial arm of the BBC. Currently the forma ...

''.

Biography

Grinenko was born in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

, on December 14, 1976 and has been dancing since she was seven years old. She has been trained in ballroom dancing, ballet and Russian folk dancing. She worked with the Ballroom Formation Team of Russia, and when she reached her third year as a competitive professional dancer, she became a Soviet Union Finalist. In 1994, she emerged as the Latin Division winner at both the Moscow and National Championships. She graduated from high school in 1995, and from there went on to study various kinds of dances at the Art Academy of Russia. In 1998, she moved to the United States, where she became one of the fastest rising stars in the dancing industry. On August 17, 2012, she married model and actor

Rib Hillis Robert Duane Hillis (born November 21, 1970) is an American model and actor. He is best known for playing Hamilton ("Hamm") in the film '' Sharktopus vs. Pteraconda''. Early life and career Robert Duane Hillis was born in Suffern, New York, and ...

Partnerships

After ten years of dancing with Michael Nadtochy, with whom she was Russian National Champion, she decided to form a partnership with

Maksim Chmerkovskiy Maksim "Maks" Aleksandrovich Chmerkovskiy ( uk, Максим Олександрович Чмерковський ; born January 17, 1980) is a Ukrainian-American Latin–ballroom dance champion, choreographer, and instructor. He is widely known ...

. Together they became one of the top finalist couples in the world in International Latin. Eventually, she was the undefeated U.S. and World Rhythm Champion with her last partner,

Tony Dovolani Driton Dovolani (born July 17, 1973), commonly known as Tony Dovolani is an Albanian-American professional ballroom dancer, instructor and judge. He is known for his involvement in the American version of ''Dancing with the Stars'' on ABC. Dovolan ...

Dancing with the Stars

In 2006, Grinenko found herself competing against former Latin partner Chmerkovskiy, and American rhythm partner Dovolani when she was selected to join the cast of the third season of ''

''. She was paired with journalist

Tucker Carlson Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson (born May 16, 1969) is an American television host, conservative political commentator and writer who has hosted the nightly political talk show ''Tucker Carlson Tonight'' on Fox News since 2016. Carlson began h ...

; they were eliminated the first week. Grinenko returned to the ballroom for the fourth season, and was partnered with NBA star

Clyde Drexler Clyde Austin Drexler (born June 22, 1962) is an American former professional basketball player and the commissioner of the Big3 3-on-3 basketball league. Nicknamed "Clyde the Glide", he played 15 seasons in the National Basketball Association ...

. They were the fourth couple to be eliminated. This ranked them in eighth place.

Dancing with the Stars performances

With celebrity partner

: With celebrity partner

Second World Dance Championship

In 2010, Grinenko was representing U.S.A. in the

Second Dance World Championship The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds ...

(celebrated in Mexico). She was paired with Paul Barris. Elena came out from the competition after learning that she was pregnant. Her replacement was Snejana Petrova

Achievements

References

http://elenagrinenko.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Grinenko, Elena 1976 births Dancers from Moscow Living people Russian ballroom dancers Russian female dancers Participants in American reality television series 21st-century Russian dancers