Alex Tecza and Katja Lindholm 
are the owners of Master Dance. Together they have extensive experience in several ballroom dance styles. They have recently retired from a very successful competitive ballroom dance career reaching finals in all major competitions, including US Nationals and World Championships in the professional American Smooth division.
They currently focus on exploring other movement and dance forms to find similarities between different techniques and styles of dance. Their goal is to use their knowledge of other styles to expand the limits of ballroom dancing and work out a system to train dancers to think outside the box of ballroom dancing and give them the technique to master any movement. They received their teacher certifications through United States Terpsichore Association.
Miriam Hymes
began her ballroom training here at Master Dance while working as an elementary teacher. Soon after she started competing as a Pro/Am student and consistently placed in the top 3. It wasn't long before Miriam decided to combine her skills as a teacher and her love for dancing. Since 2008 Miriam has been a part of Master Dance, teaching a variety of group classes, wedding couples, and private lessons. She is professionally certified with DVIDA and strives daily to grow as a dancer and teacher.
Brett Morris
competed in pro-am before turning professional reaching finals in American Smooth and Rhythm. Dancing with students he has won many scholarships and has received Top Teacher awards. He was a principal dancer at Millikin University's Equinox Dance Concert, has danced professionally with Tiempo Tango and was the Tango Ambassador for the Decatur, Illinois community's world record attempt to have the most couples tangoing at the same time. He holds a BFA in Theatre and French which gives him a special ability to relate to his students and to create beautiful competition and exhibition dances. Aside from teaching he also competes professionally and is working towards completing his DVIDA certification.
Karen Janet
has extensive training and performance experience in classical ballet. She has trained over the years with the best teachers such as Richard Ellis, Christine DuBoulay, Jurgen Schneider, Ruby Gaba, Ben Stevenson, Madame Janina Cunova and many more. Her training gave her the opportunity to be awarded a scholarship to travel Europe as a dance member of the Talented Teens performing arts group performing in France, Germany, England, Holland and Switzerland.
She then became a member of the Dupage Ballet Company under the direction of Lloyd Labit and continued to perform original and classical pieces. She has been teaching classical ballet and pointe to advanced, upper intermediate and adult students as well as summer intensives in the Chicago area.
Laura Chiaramonte
has been performing and producing work professionally for the past eleven years and has worked with many celebrated artists and companies. Laura co-founded and directed the non-profit performing arts company, Creative Arts Melting Pot (CAMP). The company produced four major productions, created over ten new works, was featured in the PBS Special "The Chicago Dance Project", and performed for Hans Breder, Collaboration, Cirque Du Soleil, Dance Chicago, and Full Circle Festival. In 1998, Laura received her B.F.A from The Ohio State University in modern dance performance and in 2009 received her M.F.A in dance at the University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign. Laura is the 2009 Pat Knowles Graduate Travel Award recipient, designated for outstanding MFA candidate. In the summer of 2008, she received a fellowship for the Choreographers Project at the Summer Stages Dance intensive in Concord, Massachusetts.
