Mazur spread love of dance to all ages

Roman Mazur is being remembered as a man who founded Mazurdance in Buffalo Grove and enjoyed teaching people of all ages to dance.

Mazur, 87, was pronounced dead after he was hit by a southbound gray Toyota sedan around 8 a.m. Monday near the intersection of Buffalo Grove Road and Larraway Drive. Authorities said the driver was a 60-year-old Buffalo Grove woman.

Mazur’s widow Tatyana called it a tragic accident, saying he was returning from his morning jog.

Alex Khrakovsky, who is married to Mazur’s niece, said neither Mazur nor the driver saw each other.

After open heart surgery several years ago and a serious bout with COVID-19, Mazur devoted himself to maintaining his health through physical activity.

“He was getting up every day at five in the morning, and went to the to the park nearby to jog five to six miles daily,” Khrakovsky said.

Trained as a mechanical engineer in Ukraine, Mazur fell under the spell of dance while in college and served for 32 years as artistic director and main choreographer for the world-renowned Kiev-based folk troupe “Flight.”

Mazur came to the U.S. from Ukraine in the 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union. Years before that, he met Tatyana, an accomplished ballet teacher, in Riga, Latvia. They have been together for 37 years.

After first settling in Cleveland, he came to Buffalo Grove in 2002 and started the dance studio at 1337 W. Dundee Road in his 60s.

“It’s very rare when people of his age start a business,” Khrakovsky said.

“He energized a lot of people to get involved in the dancing culture,” Khrakovsky said.

In 2016, Mazurdance staged a dance festival titled “Melodies From My Grandmother’s Chest: Music from the 1930s and ’40s,” which featured performers ranging in age from 15 to 70.

That year, the village of Buffalo Grove honored Mazur for “his years of dedicated service” to the arts “and to the cultural enrichment of the Village of Buffalo Grove.”

He also paid homage to his Jewish heritage, at 86 performing a solo dance to the Israeli folk song “Hava Nagila,” Tatyana said.

“I remember how the audience stayed quiet when Hava Nagila would start. And after that, it was like a volcanic eruption,” she said.

Services for Mazur will be held at noon Friday at Chicago Jewish Funerals, 195 N. Buffalo Grove Road, Buffalo Grove. The service will be livestreamed.

Interment will be at Vernon Cemetery, 15215 Cemetery Road, Lincolnshire.

A GoFundMe account has been set up to help cover funeral expenses.