Why Yuniia stayed at IDC: on managers who do more than run a business

Yuniia Furman did not join IDC as a teacher. She was looking for any job at all — and definitely not a teaching one. How she came to stay here and become senior teacher she sums up in one word herself: fate.

The advert she saved

"I went on Work.ua," Yuniia recalls. "I saw that the centre needed an administrator and saved the contact. And then I noticed you were also looking for a street-styles coach — and I thought: right, I could give this a go." She called. Tymofii answered and invited her to meet.

She remembers that first meeting "as if it were yesterday". She arrived — and was told straight away that his wife would be along shortly, she is one of our teachers. Yuniia "broke into seven sweats" at that: it was her first serious interview, and she was 21.

What she understood at that first meeting

"At the first meeting I realised you suited me very well," says Yuniia. "I came home to my husband and said: the people there are so good, the energy is great. I read people through their energy — if I don't like someone straight away, that won't change. And I liked you a lot."

But the main thing she puts differently — and it was precisely this that proved decisive: "With you I found out that there are managers with whom I want to build a structure. Managers who do more than just run a business."

Why here, and not where she was before

Yuniia had management before IDC too — but it was a hard experience. She explains the difference through human relationships: "I know how to separate a working relationship from a friendship. But I can't work without the friendship. I need to feel that I matter to people, and they matter to me." That was missing before — "maybe they did care for me in their own way, because they didn't know how else, but it still wasn't the same."

At IDC everything came together. "I liked your scheme — how you see my work, our shared work. That you give me freedom to act, and I can open up more." It is through those human relationships, Yuniia says, that the studio became genuinely close to her.

How a family studio became something bigger

At first Yuniia worked as an administrator for a long time — while "finishing off" her own dancing alongside it. And then everything changed for both sides. Before she arrived, IDC was more of a family studio focused on adult social dance with a little for children. The arrival of a professional of Yuniia's level made the studio understand the main thing: there is no need to limit yourself. That is when the children's directions began to be developed seriously — and everything the studio is proud of today grew out of that.

Director Kateryna describes the synergy like this: "We clicked at the very start — and there's no need to say anything. Yuniia knows how things should be, she simply says it out loud, and we make decisions together and improve things." And Yuniia herself adds the simplest explanation of why she is here: here she felt that she mattered — and that the people around her mattered to her.

Read also: what a senior teacher's job actually involves. And if you are interested in working with our team, take a look at the contemporary choreography teacher vacancy.