Diana Diaz-Harrison is the lead founder, CEO, and heart and soul of Arizona Autism Charter Schools, the first autism focused tuition-free public school in Arizona. More than 200 K-12 students students on the autism spectrum with varying degrees of intellectual/developmental disabilities attend the school. Diaz is responsible for the expansion of the arts program at the school and bringing the life-long benefits of Ballroom Dance to ALL students at the school in partnership with DanceSport Education and Imperial Ballroom Dance Company. She has a passionate and powerful message about the benefits of ballroom dance and the impact it is creating for these autistic students. A leader, Diana has received these awards:

Alex Hristov on acoustic guitar and Max Perrault on flute, two of Arizona’s best musical talents will perform live during presentations and dinner time. Hear some of the best Latin, Jazz and Flamenco tunes. Alex is best known for his ability to play deeply emotional, traditional Flamenco while venturing into Latin music, Jazz, and other genres with ease. His deep musical and cultural knowledge allows him to blend the sounds and rhythms of southern Spain with Latin and contemporary grooves. Original songs and cover arrangements give the impression he has been affected by everyone from puro Flamenco phenom Tomatito and rumba master Jesse Cook to Brazilian legend Luiz Bonfa, Gypsy Jazz pioneer Django Reinhardt, and progressive metal legend Tosin Abasi. Alex trained and studied Flamenco music, guitar, and culture with Gaetano in Arizona, and master guitarist and technician Gerardo Núñez in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, in the heart of Andalucía in southern Spain. Later, while at Brown University, he studied classical guitar to broaden his artistic perspective.

Enjoy an AMAZING Ballroom Theater Show production by Imperial Ballroom’s top students and students from Arizona Autism Charter Schools, participating in the DanceSport Education program. The show is produced by the talented Inna Berlizyeva, world-class ballroom dance professional, Imperial Ballroom’s owner and DanceSport Education Co-Founder.

Enjoy an incredible performance featuring Imperial Ballroom Dance Company’s professionals, as well as special top US guest professionals from around the country! Imperial’s professionals: Inna Berlizyeva, Artem Plakhotnyi, Ivan Khudolyi, Alisa Seleznova, Oleg Teleha, Michelle Brecker, Donovan Dominguez, Rose Dimov and Egor Abashkin

         The DanceSport Education program needs the funding and visibility to reach its full potential for social impact! With your support, we can make the program accessible and affordable for Arizona’s children and youth. 

          With the current trends of diminishing public funding for sports and arts programs, and the inability of many parents to privately afford those, especially in low-income, at risk school communities, children and youth remain negatively impacted and are deprived of participating and experiencing the benefits of those opportunities. This also includes the students with special needs and autism, who currently have no such opportunities.

        Just for the last school year, your generous support made ballroom dance accessible to over 100 low-income students at Create Academy.

       This school year we are partnering with Arizona Autism Charter Schools serving 200+ students in grades KG-12 to deliver a school-wide ballroom dance program as part of their school curriculum in support of their education. 200+ students with autism with all range of abilities receive 10 ballroom dance lessons daily from our top-rated, world-class ballroom dance professionals year-round. This is an unprecedented, pioneer effort in the US! We are bringing the research and the benefits of ballroom dance to the students with autism at their school, in their classrooms!

          Your sponsorship will directly support the critical need to increase the number of children in Arizona who engage in ballroom dance as a physical activity to build life-long healthy habits. We hope you will consider sponsoring at the Masquerade Ball GALA and join our efforts to help shape a generation of healthy and thriving children and youth!

          DanceSport Education is an Arizona, not-for-profit 501 (c) (3) organization and contributions are tax-deductible.