Faculty
| Sally Streets, Director Emerita. Ms. Streets, renowned for her teaching and choreography, has been part of Berkeley Ballet Theater since 1981. Before coming to Berkeley, Ms. Streets performed with Mia Slavenska's Ballet Variante and The New York City Ballet. In the Bay Area, she held positions as Ballet Mistress and principal dancer with the Oakland Ballet and Pacific Ballet. Her teaching background includes positions as company teacher with the San Francisco Ballet and guest teacher with the Royal Ballet, Ballet Rambert and the New York City Ballet. She has also participated as Artistic Advisor for the Diablo Ballet in Walnut Creek. Ms. Streets continues to teach for BBT and enjoys choreographing ballets for BBT productions. |
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Ilona McHugh, Artistic Director, was born in Santa Barbara, California, and started ballet at age 7. She continued at Orange County High School of the Arts, and then with Marin Dance Theatre. Ms. McHugh joined American Ballet Theatre’s corps in 1998 where she danced for ten years. Her favorite roles include Olga in Kenneth MacMillan’s Anastasia, Big Swans in Swan Lake, Paul Taylor’s Airs, and Martha Grahm’s Diversion of Angels. She has taught regularly since 2004. |
| Susan Weber, Associate Artistic Director. While dancing in the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, Ms. Weber assisted Mr. Lubovitch in setting works at the Royal Danish Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Pennsylvania Ballet, le Théâtre du Silence, and on ballerina Lynn Seymour. In recent years, she has worked at San Francisco Ballet as assistant to choreographer Mark Morris on his pieces A Garden, Later, Sylvia, and Joyride, and has worked with Tina Fehlandt to set Morris' works at the Royal Ballet and the English National Ballet. Susan holds M.A. and B.A. degrees in Dance from UCLA, and currently teaches ballet in the Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies Department at UC Berkeley. |
 Photo: Fraser Bonnell |
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Deborah Moss, School Principal. Ms. Moss has trained and worked with Sally Streets since 1986. Ms. Moss studied ballet pedagogy with Irene Owen, Jane Samps, and Karen Morell. Deborah is a Fine Arts graduate of UC Berkeley. |
Graciela Acedo was a soloist at Ballet Nuevo Mundo de Caracas. Ms. Acedo has also danced with Oakland Ballet and Mark Foehringer Dance Project, among others. Ms. Acedo has taught at the University of Nebraska and Western Ballet, where she was Associate Director. She has conducted a teaching seminar with the National Ballet of Cuba.
Patricia Banchik-Bell began her training in Mexico City where she was born and raised. She attended college at Loretto Heights College in Denver, Colorado where she received a B.A. in Dance and Psychology. She has performed with David Taylor Dance Theater, Berkeley Ballet Theater, in Dance Brigade's Nutcracker, and with independent choreographers in the Bay Area. For the past twelve years she has also ventured into choreography, and in 2003 she formed her own dance company, "Kinesis," which has performed in several venues including Dance Is Festival and West Wave Festival. Ms. Banchik has been teaching at BBT since 1988.
| Marika Brussel trained on scholarship at the Joffrey Ballet School. She has danced professionally with companies around the country including Ballet Theater of New Mexico, Napoles Ballet Theatre, and Alameda Ballet. |
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John Butterfield founded New Urban Dance Company in 1989. The Company has performed in the Bay Area and Throughout Northern California. The acting branch of the Company, Butterfield 8, has performed at the Dean Lesher Region Center for the Arts and Town Hall Theater. As a dancer Mr. Butterfield has toured the US with Dance Through Time and has performed with ODC, Left Coast Dance, and Company Chaddick. He has received two Shelly awards; one for Choreography and one for Costuming.
Brooke Byrne studied classical ballet at the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School and modern dance with Joan Lazarus, Cheryl Chaddick and Joe Goode, among others. Brooke is well known for her work teaching European Character and International Folk Dance. Her goal is to instill in her students a love for movement using many styles of dance. Ms. Byrne has a B.A. in Theater and Dance from Bard College. She is Artistic Director of Khadra International Dance Theatre and performs with Tango A Media Luz and Ballet Afsaneh.
Denise Collins trained, performed and studied for her Royal Academy exams with Santa Rosa Ballet Company and Ballet En Ronde. Working with various Bay Area schools and companies, she has taught ballet and creative dance to children for twenty years. Her background also includes Early Childhood Education and teaching pre-school.
Coreen Danaher Coreen was born in Vallejo, CA. She trained there in the Royal Academy of Dance syllabus under Patricia O’Reilly and later at Berkeley Ballet Theater with Sally Streets. After graduating she had the opportunity to work with Sarah Marcus and Ballet Counterpointe in choreography by John Butterfield, Marcus, and Sonia Delwaide. Since then Coreen has performed the works of Bay Area choreographers such as Michael Lowe, Carlos Carvajal, and Reginald Ray-Savage with Peninsula Ballet Theater and Moving Arts Dance Company and has also been dancing with Oakland Ballet since 2009 in choreography by Val Caniparoli, Lowe, and most recently in Graham Lustig's "Nutcracker." Coreen has enjoyed teaching the RAD syllabus and other approaches to ballet to students all over the Bay Area for several years and is excited to join the staff at Berkeley Ballet Theater this year.
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Sonya Delwaide is a native of Quebec and Artistic Director and Resident Choreographer of Compagnie de Danse L'Astragale. Since 1983 her choreography has been regularly presented in Canada, the United States and more recently in France and Brazil. She has taught at the National Ballet of Canada, Les Grands Ballets Canadians, the Cegep of Drummondville and other professional studios in the U.S. and Canada. Ms. Delwaide currently teaches at Mills College in Oakland. Ms. Delwaide is a Fine Arts graduate of York University in Toronto. |
| Elizabeth Du Val danced professionally for over 15 years, using Pilates to fine-tune her dancing. She started teaching mat classes while still dancing in 1991, and has taught people of all ages, manner of injuries, and ambitions in a variety of places. Ms. Du Val has a foundation in classical Pilates; she also has a mat certification in Physical Mind, a reformer certification in the Stott style, and certification on the rest of the apparatus via Ellie Hermann. Ms. Du Val has taught in New York City at Pilates Reforming NY, the Asphalt Green fitness center, and in private homes. |
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Roy Gan. A classically-trained dancer from Singapore with over a decade of experience as a professional ballet dancer, teacher, ballet master, and choreographer, Mr. Gan is eager to inspire and share his knowledge, understanding, and gift of expressing the human body through the balletic, dance, and yogic art forms. He is dedicated to enthusiastic and dynamic teaching as a means of developing creativity, inspiring body awareness, consciously and mindfully applying technique to the body, and nurturing self knowledge. In Yoga for Dancers he places a strong emphasis on alignment, breath, and body awareness with creative and challenging sequencing.
Damara Ganley. Ms. Ganley graduated from UC Santa Cruz with degrees in Anthropology, Women's Studies, and Theater Arts. During her graduate program at UCSC, Damara became an ArtsBridge scholar and grant recipient, which enabled her to research, design, and implement dance education programs in several local public schools. Upon graduation Damara had the honor of dancing with the Mel Wong Dance Company, Carol Kueffer, and Mark Franko. Damara has performed locally and nationally with Bibliodance, Emspace Dance, dance ceres, Kate Mitchell, Jo Kreiter/Fly Away Productions, Nina Haft, RAW dance, and Shift Physical Theatre.
| Robert Greer, a native Californian, has been dancing throughout the U.S. for the past 15 years. Mr. Greer has performed in a number of ballet companies such as Augusta Ballet, Charleston Ballet Theatre, and Ballet Idaho. More recently he returned to San Francisco as a freelance dancer and teacher. He has enjoyed dancing in many ballets; some of his favorites are Lar Lubovitch’s My Funny Valentine, Jill Bahr’s The Rite of Spring, and Roy Gan’s Requiem. He appreciates the opportunity to share his passion for teaching and dance at BBT. |
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Erica Hartono has returned home to the Bay Area from NYC. She received her early training at the San Francisco Ballet School, Ballet Arts, and Berkeley Ballet Theater while spending summers at the schools of Boston Ballet, Joffrey Ballet and Richmond Ballet. She received her BFA in Ballet from the University of Utah with a departmental scholarship. Performing credits include Oakland Ballet, Peninsula Ballet Theater, the 40th Anniversary Tour of Fiddler on the Roof (Chava), Wonderful Town (1st National Tour), CATS (Rumpleteaser), Promises, Promises (Turkey Lurkey Trio) and The Radio City Spectacular. She has been on the faculty of The School at the Mark Morris Dance Center, NYU’s Musical Theater Program (CAP 21), The Harkness Dance Center (NYC), Art of Dance (NJ), Berkeley Ballet Theater, the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts and Diablo Ballet. In 2000 she co-founded COUNTERPOINTe, a dance company that fosters collaboration on new works between local professional SF Bay Area choreographers, composers and dancers. Erica has completed the ABT® Teacher Training Intensive and is both an ABT® Certified and ABT® Affiliate Teacher.
David Kato is Director of the Boys' Division of Berkeley Ballet Theater. Mr. Kato teaches Upper Division Children's Division classes, boys' conditioning classes, and Pas de Deux. A professional dancer since 1986, Mr. Kato trained at the Palo Alto Ballet School, Marin Ballet, and the Pennsylvania Ballet School. He has performed with Empire State Ballet, Marin Ballet, Peninsula Ballet Theater, and Margaret Wingrove Contemporary Dance Company, in addition to his appearances in many BBT performances, including The Nutcracker, Chopin for Two, and Coppelia.
Xiao Liu-Moore began her training in her native Hunan Province, China at age eleven. She won her first major award, capturing third place in the first Chinese National Dance Competition, in 1980. In 1982 she was awarded first place in the Hunan Province Dance Competition. In 1984 she took first place in the Outstanding Performers Competition in Hunan Province. She received her B.A. degree from Beijing Dance Academy in Classical Dance and Character Dance Teaching. In 1986 she was the first Chinese to receive a scholarship from the China Fund to the School of American Ballet in New York. As a dancer, instructor, and choreographer, Ms. Liu-Moore has enjoyed working with various schools and companies around the San Francisco Bay Area.
Michael Lowe joined Oakland Ballet in 1974 and was promoted to soloist in 1976. A scholarship student at Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, Mr. Lowe has performed with many companies including Pacific Ballet Company, Sacramento Ballet, and Old Souls New Shoes Dance Company with Mark Morris. Mr. Lowe has worked with such well-known choreographers as Agnes deMille, John Butler, Leonid Massine, Anna Sokolow, Betsey Erickson, William Christensen, and Ronn Guidi. He received an Izzy award for best choreography for 2001-2002. Mr. Lowe served as Oakland Ballet’s Assistant Artistic Director from 1997-2000 and Outreach Coordinator from 1982-1999. He was Artistic Director of Peninsula Ballet Theater from 2004-2008 and currently directs Black Diamond Ballet and the newly formed Menlowe Ballet.
Meghan Merrill, a Bay Area native, lived and danced in New York for eleven years before recently returning to the west coast. She received her BFA in Dance from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in 2006. Ms. Merrill has been a company member of Doug Elkins & Friends and played Maria in Doug's Fräulein Maria. She has also danced with the Neta Dance Company, directed by Neta Pulvermacher, as well as with Noemie LaFrance, Kyle Abraham, John Heginbotham, the Metropolitan Opera, Aimee Rials, and Lauren Hale. Ms. Merrill is a certified Pilates instructor.
Kimberly Ratcliffe received her training principally from the School of Nashville Ballet, Marin Dance Theatre, and the University of Louisville Dance Academy. She apprenticed with Louisville Ballet and later joined Nashville Ballet for nine seasons, performing corps, soloist, and principal roles as well as teaching and choreographing on their students and professionals. Ms. Ratcliffe was awarded a fellowship from the New York Choreographic Institute, and she holds a B.A. in Art History, magna cum laude, from the University of Louisville. Ms. Ratcliffe is currently pursuing an M.A. in Integral Counseling Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies and is excited to join BBT's faculty.
Teresa Taylor received her early training with Eric Hyrst of the Royal Ballet. While attending Southern Oregon University, where she graduated with Honors in a double major of Theater and Humanities, she performed extensively with the State Ballet of Oregon. Performances include Swan Lake, Les Sylphides, The Nutcracker, and many original ballets. Ms. Taylor continued her training in San Francisco and Seattle before moving to Boston to dance with the Ballet Theatre of Boston, Ballet New England, and Boston Dance Company. During this time, she performed Balanchine ballets Valse Fantastique and Concerto Barocco, as well as performing in works by Agnes de Mille, Isadora Duncan, Ted Shawn, and Ruth St. Denis. Ms. Taylor has also appeared as a guest artist with the Minnesota Dance Theater.
Rudy Apffel is BBT's principal accompanist. A well-known figure within the community of Bay Area dance studios, Mr. Apffel's attentive accompaniment helps BBT students learn to merge the skills of focus and discipline with their natural musicality.