Adult Program Faculty
Shelley C. Berg, a native of DC, trained at Ballet Arts School in Bethesda with Youry and Elizabeth Yourlo. After summer courses with Finnish ballerina Irina Hudova, and Royal Ballet soloist Valerie Taylor, she attended The Royal Ballet School in London, studying with former Royal Ballet soloists and master teachers. Shelley continued her studies in London with Hungarian ballerina and Vaganova pedagogue Maria Fay, as well as with Martha Graham maestro Jane Dudley and jazz master Matt Mattox. Her studies in Europe included classes with Royal Danish Ballet principals Arne Beck and Inge Sand, Paris Opera Ballet master pedagogues Rita Thalia and Serge Golovine, Vaganova senior teacher Nina Belikova, and with Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo ballerina Tatiana Grantzeva.
Shelley has performed with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, and with the Slovene National Ballet in Ljubljana, where her repertory included Swan Lake, Ondine, Suite en Blanc, and The Rite of Spring. She returned to London to teach at The Dance Centre and dance with London Festival Ballet on an ad hoc basis. She performed in ballets such as Les Sylphides, Etudes, Swan Lake, Antony Tudor’s Echoing of Trumpets, Bournonville’s Konservatoriet, and Mary Skeaping’s productions of The Sleeping Beauty and Giselle.
On her return to DC, she earned her MA in Performing Arts, and her PhD in Performance Studies at NYU. She was an Associate Professor at Southern Methodist University, where she became a Full Professor and taught for over 30 years. At SMU, she created a new MFA program, and served as Chair of the Dance Division. She was the repetiteur for many ballets staged at SMU, including works by George Balanchine, Alvin Ailey, Agnes de Mille, Frederick Ashton, Adam Houghland, Arthur Mitchell, William Forsythe, Lynne Taylor Corbett, Antony Tudor, Twyla Tharp and Paul Taylor. Shelley’s list of publications include her book, Le Sacre du Printemps: Seven Productions from Nijinsky to Martha Graham, several peer reviewed articles, and two book chapters. She served as President of the Society of Dance History Scholars ( now the Dance Studies Association), as a Consultant to the Dance Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts.
