Mission

To Nurture Artistic Excellence In Dance, Founded upon the Discipline and Artistry Of Classical Ballet, While Encouraging Students to Reach Their Greatest Potential In And Out Of The Studio

About Us

The Salt Creek Ballet School and Company were established in 1985, as a vision of its Founder/Director Emeritus, Patricia Sigurdson.

Today, Salt Creek Ballet is a leading 501c3 non-profit Chicagoland ballet school, and performance company, dedicated to dance education, providing high-level performance opportunities for our dancers, founded upon the discipline and artistry of classical ballet. We not only encourage appreciation and awareness of dance but believe education is also of the highest priority. The disciplines and life skills that dance teaches, paired with education, encourages our dancers to reach their greatest potential in and out of the studio, no matter what life path they take.

Salt Creek Ballet’s high standards and unique blend of major classical productions and artistically diverse and challenging repertory programs have brought critical acclaim, sold-out performances, and a loyal following.

Salt Creek Ballet dancers are pre-professionals drawn from the best Chicago-area talent.  Internationally known guest artists, choreographers, and designers regularly work with Salt Creek Ballet to provide dancers and audiences alike with a level of performance usually associated with professional companies.  The repertory includes traditional classical works plus original classical and contemporary works by both resident and guest choreographers.

Salt Creek Ballet Company Dancers have taken many paths. Some have been accepted to prestigious dance programs at Universities such as Butler and Utah, and some chose a major or minor in dance and dance-related disciplines. Some have joined regional dance companies and gone to university and are a part of programs that have gone on to dance with: The Royal Ballet, Zurich Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Boston Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Colorado Ballet, Las Vegas Ballet, Milwaukee Ballet, Indianapolis Ballet Theatre, Hubbard Street Dancers, Cirque du Soleil, Radio City Rockettes, Lucky Plush Productions, The Big Muddy, Dusan Tynek Dance, national and international Broadway touring Companies and various other regional classical and contemporary dance and performance companies.

Salt Creek Ballet inspires people to live with art, create art, support art, and be art. We believe that dance transforms lives, communities, and people.

We engage directly with our community through a robust outreach program with professional-quality productions and a dance curriculum to excite and inspire.

SCB operates a 10,000, square foot facility housing four dance studios located in Westmont, IL. The organization employs nine executive, artistic, and administrative staff, eleven dance instructors, and four pianists.

Salt Creek Ballet’s school is for all ages and all dance levels. The School includes classes in classical ballet, character, jazz, modern, tap, contemporary, pas de deux, ballet acting, and other classes to enrich a dancer’s capabilities. Instructors are world-class professionals with impressive backgrounds and experience to share.

Trained at the Royal Ballet School in London and in New York City with Frederick Franklin and Robert Joffrey, Sigurdson danced professionally with American Ballet Theatre and Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. As a leading Chicago-area teacher and director/founder of her own school, she trained an exceptional group of highly motivated and talented young dancers. She believed that her students would benefit from professional-level performance experience. Sigurdson also felt that the western suburbs would benefit from and support a quality, classically-trained dance company.

Sigurdson was able to assemble a nucleus of professionals and community leaders who shared her vision and had the requisite expertise and resources to begin the artistic and administrative process that would lead to the development of a strong, vibrant regional ballet company. During her tenure, the company performed a wide range of classical and contemporary works for tens of thousands of individuals while earning a national reputation for excellence in dance performance and education.

To preserve her high standard of artistry, Sergey Kozadayev and Zhanna Dubrovskaya, were engaged as Co-Artistic Directors upon Sigurdson’s retirement in 1998. Trained at the famed Vaganova School in Saint Petersburg, Russia, the couple danced for more than twenty years with the Saint Petersburg State Ballet, performing worldwide in the leading roles of many classical and contemporary ballets. Before coming to Salt Creek Ballet, Kozadayev and Dubrovskaya spent seven years with the Colorado Ballet as Ballet Master and Ballet Mistress. The pair expanded and enriched Salt Creek Ballet’s repertoire with evening-length productions of La Sylphide, Sleeping Beauty and Giselle; and excerpts from La Bayadère, Le Corsaire, and Petipa’s masterpiece, Paquita. Salt Creek Ballet alternates these great classics with mixed repertory bills, including timeless stories, such as Alice in Wonderland (jointly choreographed by Kozadayev and former Hubbard Street Chicago dancer, Susan O’Connell) and contemporary works such as BeatBox, choreographed by Eddy Ocampo, the recipient of the International Choreography Recognition Award in 2012 and 2014. Dubrovskaya retired from SCB in the spring of 2017.

Salt Creek Ballet, under the Artistic Direction of Erica De La O and Kristopher Wojtera, has expanded on SCB’s legacy, presenting its first full classical ballet story ballets in a family-friendly series: Swan Lake 2023 and Don Quixote 2024. Erica De La O was born in East Los Angeles, CA, and is a former Principal Artist with The Louisville Ballet. Erica De La O’s repertoire included leading roles in much of the classical canon, including La Sylphide, Giselle, Swan Lake, Romeo, and Juliet), Cinderella, Coppelia, Don Quixote, Sleeping Beauty, Les Sylphides, Lady of the Camellias, Nutcracker.  Including works by Balanchine, Paul Taylor, Twyla Tharp, Adam Hougland, Lucas Jervis, Val Caniparoli, Ben Stevenson, Dave Ingram, Harrison McEldowney, Helen Pickett, Ma Cong, among others. Kristopher Wojtera, born in Poland and began ballet studies at the National Ballet School in Gdansk at age ten. KristopherWojtera joined the Polish National Theatre in Warsaw and worked with prominent choreographers such as Lorca Miasin, Emil Wesolowski, Yuri Grigorovich, Krzysztof Pastor, and Mats Ek. During Kristopher Wojtera’s 28 year career, his repertoire as a Principal artist included leading roles in Giselle (Albrecht), Swan Lake (Siegfried), Nutcracker (Cavalier), The Three Musketeers (D’artagnan), Don Quixote (Basilio), The Lady with the Camellias (Armand), Le Patineurs (Blue Boy), Theme and Variations, Billy The Kid, as well as contemporary works by Ma Cong, Val Caniparoli, Twyla Tharp, Antony Tudor, Harrison McEldowney, and many others.