Our Instructors

 Matt Kellar found dance during his collegiate career at the University of Minnesota in 1989.  After 3 years of social and collegiate competitive dancing, he knew that this was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life and decided to make dance a career.

 He trained with numerous world-renowned coaches with Fred Astaire, Arthur Murray and other independent studios.

  In 2000, Matt moved to Arizona to work for Fred Astaire Dance Studio.  While with Fred Astaire, he trained rank beginner students to high level competitors, taking pride in watching his students become so accomplished.

  His love of dance and success as an instructor allowed him the opportunity to open his own studio.  By 2008, he owned 3 franchises.

In 2012, he and his wife Zhenya left Fred Astaire to start their own dance company. In the beginning of March 2018, Matt and Zhenya opened a beautiful new dance studio, Dream Dance.  

They are looking forward to creating a studio that promotes fun, quality and a sense of community.  They are excited to share their love and passion of dancing with the city of Tucson.

 Zhenya Dokuchaeva was born in Moscow, Russia. She was one of the lead dancers at the Moscow Youth Ballroom Dance Theater. From age five she started competing internationally in Latin and Standard. By age twenty one

she was ranked in the top 100 amateurs in the world by the International Dance Sport Federation.

In 2008, she moved to the United States and made her home in Tucson. She started working for Fred Astaire Dance Studios as an advanced instructor. In 2011, she married Matt Kellar. A year later, she and her husband opened their own ballroom dance company, Dream Dance. Now she teaches a variety of students at all levels. 

In 2018 Zhenya also started coaching  

for the U of A Ballroom club. She also serves as a coach and choreographer for other professional dancers as well.  

Alan was born in Texas and as a young Air Force brat, lived and traveled around the world. Early on, he was introduced to dancing by his step-father at his Fred Astaire Studio. In 1979, right after high school, he moved to Florida where he became a professional dance instructor. He trained at Fred Astaire, Arthur Murray’s and other independent studios. He also competed professionally for 10 years and garnered numerous national finalist awards. 

Alan enjoys teaching new and high level competition students. When he’s not teaching, Alan enjoys golf and traveling. 

Spencer, an Arizona Native has been dancing for over 10 years.  He competed with the collegiate UA ballroom  during his tenor at the UA.  He is also part of the Lajkonic Polish Folk dance group for over 4 years.  

He enjoys teaching all levels of students.

Alex began competitive Ballroom dancing at the age of 10years old.  He was a member of the "Dancecatzs" Jr. Ballroom  Competitive & Performance group touring various places in Arizona, Texas and Florida, placing multiple first place in his category. till the age of 18.  He was also a member of "Lajkonik Dance Group" performing traditional Polish Dancing  and toured all of Poland  for the World Performance in 2014 .

Tucson Native, Bianca Ortiz began her love of dance at the age of 10. Inspired by PBS Ballroom dance challenge, she told her parents she was going to be a professional ballroom dancer and has never looked back. 

At the age of 17, she was blessed to have been trained by amazing coaches and masters with the likes of Ron Montez, Toby and Harmony Munroe, Janna and James Kunitz, Alex Krebs, David Little, Danel and Maria Bastone, Shasha Farber, Kevin Lee and many more. 

Her teaching specialties are Argentine Tango, West Coast Swing, Country, Latin,  American style and International style in which she currently competes in.

She loves to share her vivacious love of dance, music and connection with her students, always with a touch of humor. 

She is an accomplished painter having graduated from University of Arizona with a Bachelor degree in Fine Art and Spanish . 

She feels blessed and very happy to be part of the Dream Dance team!

Dima began dancing at an early age of 6.  As a Jr competitor, he was already a Latin Champion in his category in his home town of Ukraine. At 17 he began teaching, both adults and children and garnered them as finalists in the National Championship in Ukraine. He's a graduate of Kharkiv State Academy.  In 2017 he owned his own dance studio and organized the All-Ukrainian competitions

Meet our New Instructor

Jesse Dickson has been living in Tucson and teaching many styles of ballroom dance for over 20 years.  In his early years, he was known locally for his Salsa and West Coast Swing dancing. 

While teaching has always been his passion, he also wanted to pursue performing competitively at a professional level.  In doing so, he made a name for himself in the West Coast Swing community as a Classic Division champion.  Jesse choreographed unique one of a kind routines that lead him and his dance partner to win competitions, teach, judge and perform worldwide.   

Jesse's focus is now on teaching and helping students achieve their goals whether it is improving their social dancing skills in West Coast Swing or Salsa, advancing their technique in Smooth and Rhythm dancing, or needing new choreography to perform or compete.