Robin Dekkers, Artistic Director

Robin Dekkers (they/them) is the Artistic Director of Berkeley Ballet, where they infuse their passion for collaboration into training and performance opportunities for dancers of all ages and levels of experience. Robin was also the founding Artistic Director of Post:ballet, a professional contemporary dance company based in the Bay Area from 2010-2025. With Berkeley Ballet and Post:ballet, Robin facilitated co-productions with organizations including Kronos Quartet, San Francisco Girls Chorus, Berkeley Symphony, Berkeley Art Museum (BAMPFA), and Berkeley Public Library. Robin has also created original works for Atlanta Ballet, Grand Rapids Ballet, Kansas City Ballet, Smuin Ballet, and Diablo Ballet, as well as the dance departments at Stanford University, Southern Methodist University, University of Richmond, and San Jose State University. Named “25 To Watch” by DANCE Magazine, Robin has created dozens of works for the stage and screen, and their choreography has been featured at venues including Jacob’s Pillow, SF International Arts Festival, SF Dance Film Festival, 92nd Street Y (NYC), Stanford Live, Dance on Camera (NYC), Yale Schwarzman Center, Film at Lincoln Center, and SF Frameline Film Festival. Robin danced professionally with Ballet Arizona, ODC/Dance, Company C Contemporary Ballet, and Diablo Ballet, where they were nominated for an Isadora Duncan Award for “Outstanding Performance- Individual.” In 2021, Robin choreographed the season finale dance sequence for Starz Network's Blindspotting series in collaboration with Lil Buck, Jon Boogz, and the Post:ballet dancers. Robin is also Director of Choreography for Art Haus, a Playa performance group whose past productions include a reimagined Rite of Spring and Firebird as well as original works including Noble Beast, In C, and We, Human.

Sally Streets, Artistic Director Emerita

Sally Streets, Artistic Director Emerita, has danced, taught, and choreographed in the Bay Area for more than thirty years. An Oakland native, Streets performed with Mia Slavenska’s Ballet Variante and with New York City Ballet early in her career. She was a principal dancer with Pacific Ballet and Oakland Ballet. She has served as Guest Company Teacher for San Francisco Ballet, the New York City Ballet, and the Royal Ballet in London. In 2003, Streets was honored with the Isadora Duncan Lifetime Achievement Award. She continues to teach and create new works for BBT and has created seventeen world premieres for Diablo Ballet since March 1994.

Streets is the proud mother of Alexander V. Nichols, who has served as Resident Visual Designer for the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company since 1988 and received the San Francisco Certificate of Honor for his work at the American Conservatory Theater, four Isadora Duncan Awards, four Bay Area Critics Circle Awards, and three Dean Goodman Awards; Kyra Nichols, a former Principal Dancer at New York City Ballet and current ballet mistress with Pennsylvania Ballet; and late son Robbie Nichols, a dancer and choreographer with Berkeley Ballet Theater.

Sandra Chinn, Artistic Advisor

Sandra Chinn is a ballet teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area. She received the Special Achievement Award by the Isadora Duncan Dance Awards Committee for her "Commitment to and excellence in the training, teaching, inspiring, and motivating dancers throughout the dance community”.  She is the Director of Pedagogy (Youth Division) at Berkeley Ballet, and faculty member at Alonzo King Lines Ballet | BFA at Dominican University, The Training Ground San Francisco (TTGSF), and ODC Dance School. She regularly conducts company classes for ODC/Dance, Alonzo King Lines Ballet, SF DanceWorks, Eight/Moves, Smuin Contemporary Ballet, A.I.M Kyle Abraham, and Paul Taylor Dance Company. She has been guest adjunct faculty at NYU Tisch Summer Dance Residency, Visiting Guest Artist at Hollins University MFA Dance Program, and faculty member of Lines Ballet Training Program. Chinn has Vaganova teacher’s training (Level 1–4) with Karen Morell and her ballet class is somatically informed through studies with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Body-Mind Centering, Pilates, Feldenkrais, Franklin Method, Alexander Technique, Iyengar Yoga, Progressing Ballet Technique, and Gyrotonics/Gyrokinesis.

A native of Berkeley, California, she studied with Jane Stamps in Albany, California and received full scholarships at National Academy of Arts, Joffrey Ballet School, and continued studies with Maggie Black.  A New York Drama Desk Award nominee (“Best Featured Actress in a Musical”), she won praise as a “charismatic, expressive young star” (Stephen Holden, New York Times), for her various comedic dance portrayals in the Off-Broadway production of Funny Feet. In New York City, as a company member of Dennis Wayne’s Dancers, Finis Jhung's Chamber Ballet USA, and American Ballet Comedy, she has toured extensively throughout North America and Europe.

Courtney Henry, School Director

Courtney Henry is an interdisciplinary creator, performer, writer, educator, mentor, and mother. She grew up on the occupied lands of West Palm Beach, FL, attended A.W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts, and was further educated at Fordham University and The Ailey School in New York City. Her artistry magnified while dancing with Alonzo King LINES Ballet for 14 seasons in collaboration with musicians, architects, and anthropologists. Courtney has taught, lectured, and researched at The University of the Arts, The Juilliard School, Rutgers University, Muhlenberg College, and Cornell University as a recent M.F.A. graduate.

Her work has been featured not only as a performer but as a critical contributor in Dance Magazine, Pointe Magazine, DIYDancer Magazine, and numerous lifestyle and travel publications. She is an awardee of the Princess Grace Foundation – USA and Chris Hellman Dance award, a YAGP ‘Stars of Tomorrow Gala’ Alumni, a Goethe Institute Research Beneficiary bringing her to the West coast of Africa, and a recipient of the UArts President's Award for Innovative & Creative Research. 

If you have questions about the BBT School programs, please reach out to courtneyh@berkeleyballet.org

Susan Weber, Dance for PD® Director

Susan Weber danced in the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, touring extensively in North America and Europe and assisting Mr. Lubovitch in setting works at the Royal Danish Ballet, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, and on Lynn Seymour of the Royal Ballet, among many others. More recently, she assisted Mark Morris as he created new works at San Francisco Ballet: A Garden, Later, his full-length Sylvia, and Joyride. She has also helped set his works at the Royal Ballet and English National Ballet. In July 2019 she performed in two short Samuel Beckett plays Morris directed for the Happy Days Festival in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland.

Trained in Cecchetti ballet technique and later mentored by master teachers Mia Slavenska, Jack Cole, and Maggie Black, Weber is also a certified yoga instructor and a passionate lifelong student of anatomy and kinesiology.

Weber founded the Dance for PD® Program at BBT in 2008, motivated by her father’s twenty-year experience with Parkinson’s disease and by her long friendships with Mark Morris and founding teachers David Leventhal and John Heginbotham. Weber has the honor of being the first Dance for PD® certified teaching artist in the state of California. She holds M.A. and B.A. degrees in Dance from UCLA, where she graduated with honors and first began teaching during graduate school.

Weber is Director of BBT’s Dance for PD® Program, teaches Levels 8 and 9 in the Youth Division, and serves as Advisor to members of the Studio Company.

Kaori Ogasawara, Rehearsal Director

Kaori Ogasawara was born in Japan and studied ballet with her grandmother Kazue Ogasawara and her coach Takao Hisamitsu. In 1993 Ogasawara came to the US to train at the Boston Ballet School; she danced at Boston Ballet before joining Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre in 1999 with her husband Christopher Rendall-Jackson and was promoted to soloist in 2004. After joining PBT, Ogasawara performed featured roles including the Sugar Plum Fairy and Marie in Terrence S. Orr’s The Nutcracker, Myrtha in Giselle, Mercedes in Don Quixote, Svetlana in Ben Stevenson's Dracula, and Queen of Hearts in Derek Dean's Alice's Adventure in Wonderland. Among many opportunities to dance George Balanchine’s ballets, Ogasawara’s performances included the Russian Lead Girl in Serenade, Sylvia: Pas de Deux, Theme and variations, Divertimento No. 15, and Who Cares? Ogasawara also performed in contemporary ballets by choreographers such as Paul Taylor, Dwight Rhoden, and Jean-Christophe Maillot.

Among other things, she is currently the Rehearsal Director for Berkeley Ballet Theater; company class teacher for various companies, including ODC and Oakland Ballet Company; and guest teacher and choreographer for New Ballet Ensemble in Memphis, Tennessee. She and her husband are also proud parents of two children, Emiya and Hana.