Teachers & Staff

Alissa Deutsch

Alissa Deutsch is the founder and owner of Studio18, home of FUSION Dance Company. She has been involved in the dance industry since 1997. Alissa has trained at many prestigious dance studios in the Chicagoland area including; Gus Giordano, Joel Hall, and Lou Conte Dance Studios. She has also trained in Los Angeles, California, at Millennium Dance Complex and Debbie Reynolds Dance Studio. Over the past 20 years, Alissa has taught dance in the north shore of Chicago at private dance studios and had guest residencies at area High Schools. She has also travels and set choreography at many studios and schools in and around the Midwest. In 2001, Alissa founded FUSION Dance Company, a competitive hip hop dance company for kids ages 7 through 18. Throughout her many years teaching dance, she also worked with kids each summer at a day camp for the past 20 years, ensuring each child’s day was filled with fun, smiles, and memories to last a lifetime. Her love and passion for dance coupled with her ability to bond with kids of various ages has lead her to her success in teaching.

Ali Fishman

Ali Fishman was the Assistant Director and a founding member of FUSION Dance Company in 2001. With training from esteemed choreographers at Monsters of Hip Hop, Debbie Reynolds, and Millennium dance studios, Ali has many years of experience in the dance industry.  She’s also been a member of professional hip hop companies like The Misses and Dance 2XS. As an instructor, Ali has worked in various categories within the dance world. She’s been a choreographer for the Stevenson High School Poms team, directed three musicals at Bannockburn School, and taught at Sole 2 Sole dance studio for 14 years. As a professional dancer, Ali’s recounts her most exciting moment as dancing behind Janet Jackson on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Teaching is her number one passion and seeing the growth in her students is her biggest reward.

Juliana Dragisic

Juliana Dragisic started dancing at the age of 4, taking ballet and jazz classes. From that age on, she studied in most styles of dance consisting of ballet, jazz, hiphop, contemporary, pointe, & modern. At the age of 16, Juliana auditioned for a professional, adult contemporary company; Meraki Dance Company. She was one of the founding members of Meraki and the youngest on the company. After her first year of working with Meraki Dance Company, she got the news that she was accepted into AMDA College and Conservatory of the Performing Arts! She traveled to New York City and enrolled into a 2-week summer program at AMDA, and was able to study all forms of dance. She learned and trained with LaQuet Pringle. Juliana then graduated in the class of 2020 at AMDA College and Conservatory of the Performing Arts in Los Angeles, with her Bachelor’s in Fine Arts (BFA). She has worked with a variety of dance instructors; Donyelle Jones, Fresh Redding, Mackenzie Martin, Stephanie Landwehr, Louis Jones, Jason Gorman, Nancy Owen, Tracy Silver, Misha Lee, Sergio Lopez, and many others. Juliana performed in Fresh Redding’s choreographer’s Carnival piece in Los Angeles. She is currently working as a choreographer and dance instructor in the Chicagoland area, and also creating kinetic films including choreography and editing.

Kelly Anderson

Kelly Anderson, originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is a recent graduate of Western Michigan University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance and a minor in Social Psychology. During her time at WMU, Kelly had the privilege of performing professional works by Aszure Barton, Kyle Abraham, Brian Enos, and Rennie Harris. Kelly was a member of the WMU dance touring ensemble Western Dance Project under the direction of Whitney Moncrief in which she toured the Midwest performing and engaging in outreach. She has performed works by faculty members Jeremy Blair and Carolyn Pavlik while also being involved in Monique Haley’s graduate thesis Encounter and 2017 National Choreography Competition winner Brendan Duggan’s work HAUNT. Kelly has attended ADF’s New York Winter Intensive, DanceWorks Chicago’s DanceForce and ChoreoLab, and Houston METdance’s Professional Summer Intensive. She served as the President of Orchesis Dance Society – a student organization within the Department of Dance at WMU – and was a part of Movement Exchange in which she shared dance with local children in preschools and after-school programs as well as internationally in Panamá at orphanages and underserved schools. Kelly believes in the powerful ability dance has to bring people together and loves sharing this with her students!

Felecia Hubbard

Felecia Hubbard is a mover, creator, and educator based in the Chicagoland area. Felecia started training in high school in competitive studios. From there she started taking classes and intensives, training in all different styles of hip hop and urban movement. Felicia has also worked with companies such as The Puzzle League and Coda, gaining more competitive and performance experience. Through these endeavors, Felecia found her passion for working with kids. She has been teaching and choreographing for the past 5 years, working with all ages. Felecia loves to share her craft with the next generation. She currently teaches full time while maintaining her training making sure she brings nothing but the best to her students.

Lauren Smith

Lauren Smith is a creative based in Michigan. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in dance from Western Michigan University in May 2021. Here she has had the opportunity to perform works by Melanie George, Brendan Dougan, Aszure Barton, Kate Skarpetowska, Seyong Kim, and Mike Esperanza, and was a member of Western Dance Project under direction of Whitney Moncrief (2018-2019). In 2018, Brendan Duggan’s work was selected to perform at the American College Dance Association East-Central Conference. In 2020, Lauren was selected as the Maggie Allesee Choreography Award winner with her work, Is your heart beating?.

Lauren has been traveling with Dupree Dance Convention and Competition as a lead assistant since 2018, where she has had the opportunity to travel to Illinois, Texas, and Louisiana. She holds a position as the Digital Media and Brand Manager of Young Dancers Initiative and has been a part of their team since 2019. In 2020, Lauren’s work in photography turned from hobby to small business. She is a self-taught photographer who specializes in dance and movement-based photos, and has had the privilege of photographing many developing artists in Michigan and Illinois.

Alyssa Sloan

Alyssa Sloan is a dancer and current physical therapy graduate student at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in North Chicago. She has danced her whole life and has an appreciation for fitness, movement, and health. Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, she trained on FUSION too! and Soul2Sole’s dance company. In high school, she transitioned to FUSION Dance Company and was a member for all 4 years. She also danced all 4 years of high school on their dance team, Deerfield’s Warrior Dance Team, and was captain her senior year. She also was a member of the high school’s dance company. Alyssa went to college at University of Michigan and was on a hip hop team there, EnCore, for her 4 years of undergrad. Alyssa has performed at numerous events and venues, including Ice Cube’s Big 3 basketball tournament at UIC. She is now a second year doctor of physical therapy student who continues to take dance classes. She enjoys taking hip hop classes at Visceral Dance in downtown Chicago in her free time. In addition, she is a certified instructor for WERQ, a cardio hip hop fitness class, and teaches at her graduate school twice a week as well as subs at Midtown Athletic Club in Bannockburn.  She cannot wait to share her love for dance and fitness at Studio 18!