Arkady Bakenov & Rosa Filippello

In 2007 they were finalists in the coveted British Rising Star Championship at Blackpool and winners of the New Zealand National Championship.

Originally from Kazakhstan, the Bakenov family migrated to New Zealand and then arranged for Arkady to live in Australia to further his career in dance.

He now has a Bachelor of Arts in Dance graduating from the West Australian Academy.

Rosa was born in Sydney to a ‘dancing family’ and has been an Australian Open Champion.

After only 5 weeks of dancing together these two won their first competition, the WA State Championship!

In the 12 months that they have been dancing together they have won 13 NZ National titles and 1 Australian Title. They represented New Zealand at the 2007 World Youth Ten Dance Championship in Singapore.

Besides his dancing, Mathew is an accomplished trombonist, singer and stage performer.

Both Mathew and Samantha are on the committee of DanceSport Auckland and hope to help raise the profile of dancesport in New Zealand as well as assist in finding ways to increase travel assistance to competitors wishing to tackle the world circuit.