Faculty
Ramon Moreno
Founder and Artistic Director
Professor of Dance Pedagogy
Ramon Moreno danced with Ballet San Jose as a Principal Dancer from 1999 until his retirement in 2014. He received his ballet training at the famed Escuela Nacional de Artes (National Arts School), in Havana, Cuba, and was awarded the title of Professional Dancer and Professor of Dance Pedagogy. Ramon is also a graduate of the American Ballet Theater (ABT) National Training Curriculum (for teachers) from Primary to Level 5.
Following his training in Cuba, he participated extensively in competitions worldwide, winning seven medals, four of which were gold. He was a member of the National Ballet of Cuba under the direction of Alicia Alonso. Ramon later joined the Classical Ballet of Havana under Laura Alonso, Alicia Alonso's daughter, and toured internationally. Through his participation in the 1998 IBC in Jackson, Mississippi he was awarded a contract with Cleveland-San Jose Ballet under the direction of Dennis Nahat. In 2000, he followed the company to San Jose until his retirement in 2014. His repertoire includes Apollo, Carmen, Who Cares?, The Four Temperaments, Flower Festival at Genzano, Giselle, Romeo and Juliet, Coppélia, Don Quixote, Swan Lake and Involucion. He won an Isadora Duncan Award for Outstanding Performances for the Ballet San Jose 2008-2009 season. Mr. Ramon was on the faculty of Ballet San Jose School's Summer Intensive Program, as well as a number of Bay Area ballet schools including Santa Clara Ballet and Bayer Ballet Academy.
Mr. Ramon is currently teaching the Youth Program as well as Open classes. He is a gifted, inspiring instructor who is highly sought after for coaching and training for competitions and performances.
Alex Kramer
Ballet & Pilates Instructor
Formerly- Washington Ballet, Soloist at Ballet San Jose, ABT Studio Company
Born in Grand Junction, Colorado, at the age of 7 Alex Kramer began his training at The Institute of Dancing Arts. He has also trained with Jean-Philippe Malaty, Executive Director of Aspen Santa Fe Ballet. He participated in the Denver Ballet Guild Young Dancer's Competition from 2004 through 2009, and in 2009 was awarded the Florence Ruston Award for Overall Excellence. In 2009, he began training at the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School at American Ballet Theatre in New York City, and in 2010, he became the first recipient of the David Hallberg Scholarship there.
Mr. Alex was a member of American Ballet Theatre's Studio Company for the 2011/2012 season and performed with ABT II on its 2011 European tour, where he danced Jerome Robbins's “Interplay,” George Balanchine's “Allegro Brillante,” and Antony Tudor's “Continuo.” Mr. Alex joined the former Ballet San Jose in 2012 and was promoted to soloist in 2015. He danced many leading roles, notably Sir Frederick Ashton’s “Les Renezdevous,” George Balanchine’s “Theme and Variations,” and Jorma Elo’s “Glow-Stop.” Mr. Alex joined the Washington Ballet in Washington DC in 2017. There he danced the role of Paris in John Cranko’s “Romeo and Juliet,” the Hoofer in George Balanchine’s “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue,” the lead in George Balanchine’s “Allegro Brillante,” and George Balanchine’s “Tarantella” Pas de Deux, among others.
Mr. Alex has practiced Pilates throughout his ballet career. He initially started Pilates as a way to cross-train and improve his performance as a dancer. Pilates improved his practice as a dancer but as he dove deeper into the work he learned the benefits of Pilates for everyday function and well-being. He trained to be a Pilates teacher through the Pure Body Teacher Training certification program.
Nicole Khoo
Ballet Instructor
Nicole moved to the Bay area in April 2022 and since then has performed professionally with Peninsula Ballet Theatre, Western Ballet, San Jose Dance Theatre, Oceanica Ballet, New Ballet and HaoExpression Dance Company. Growing up in Singapore, she trained in Chinese Dance, and went on to complete vocational levels of the RAD and CSTD under Mr. Donato C. Ferrer and Mr. Antony Tay. She joined Singapore Ballet’s pre-professional scholarship program under Mr. Janek Schergen before joining Tampa Ballet Theatre and The Georgia Ballet where she had the opportunity to perform a variety of classical and contemporary works. She has also a certified Pilates teacher and coaches students in the Classical Pilates method at Urban Body San Jose.
Stephanie Sherman
MFA, PhD
Contemporary Instructor
Stephanie Sherman, MFA, PhD, is an internationally recognized choreographer, educator, and mentor with over 25 years of experience shaping the next generation of professional dancers. Her acclaimed choreography—known for its emotional depth, rich movement vocabulary, and deeply authentic theatrical expression—has been presented across the United States, Mexico, and Ecuador, with recent honors including a 2025–26 Individual Artist Commission from the San Francisco Arts Commission.
A two-time Fulbright Award Fellow for her choreography (Mexico, 2018; Ecuador, 2006), Dr. Sherman has served as resident choreographer for professional companies and universities throughout Latin America, including CEPRODAC and Teatro Ciego (Mexico), Ballet Contemporáneo de Humanizarte. And Colectivo Zeta (Ecuador) and Concordia University in Montréal. Her critically acclaimed dance films, including Monumental and Entre Ojos, have been selected for over 30 international festivals such as the San Francisco Dance Film Festival.
In the U.S., she was a member of Boston’s Prometheus Dance Company and is currently on faculty at City Ballet San Francisco and San José State University, and teaches at ODC, and the Academy of Palo Alto Performing Arts. She has also taught extensively at top institutions, including Osipova Ballet Academy, Mexico’s prestigious Academia de la Danza Mexicana and the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes and the Dance Department at la Universidad de las Américas Puebla.
Dr. Sherman holds an MFA in Dance from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and a PhD in Performance Studies from UC Berkeley. Her teaching and choreographic work reflects a deep commitment to artistic excellence and innovation, blending rigorous technical training with creative exploration. A beloved and insightful teacher, Dr. Sherman is known for nurturing each dancer’s individual voice while developing strong contemporary technique. Many of her students have gone on to professional careers as principal dancers in major contemporary companies—and she continues to mentor young artists seeking to develop work that showcases their full potential on stage through solo and group work.
Dalirys Valladares
Guest Teacher
From Matanzas, Cuba, Dalirys graduated in 1991 from the National Ballet School in Havana. She joined Ballet de Camagüey under the artistic guidance of Mr. Fernando Alonso, where she quickly reached the Soloist category. In 1994 she was invited to join the Ballet de Monterrey, where she became a Principal Dancer not much later. She has shared the stage with famous ballet dancers such as José Manuel Carreño, Jesús Corrales, Jaime Vargas, Carlos Quenedit, Fernando Bujones among others. With the latter, she danced the principal role of “Paquita” in 1997.
She has participated in several International Dance Festivals, to mention a few: Vail Dance Festival, Kirguistan Dance Festival, Festival Cervantino, Gala Career Transition For Dancer in NY, and many others.
Her repertoire includes the leading roles of the romantic-classical tradition, among them: “Paquita”, “Raymonda”, “Le Corsaire”, “Don Quixote”, “La Bayadere”, “Swan Lake”, “Giselle”, “The Nutcracker”, “Romeo, and Juliet”, among others; as well as works by several foreign creators’ contemporary choreographies.
She had the opportunity to work with several international teachers and choreographers such as: Fernando Alonso, Fernando Bujones, Ramona de Saá, Rosa Elena Alvarez, Lila Martínez, Lázaro Carreño, Kouloubek Ishenaliev, Georgina Parkinson, Robert Hill, Ann Marie De Angelo, Jorge Amarante among others. She has been recognized for her versatility and histrionic capacity on stage and for developing a successful dance career.
She started teaching in 1994 in Monterrey-Mexico. In 1998 she received an invitation to teach in the Taller Coreográfico of the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, México.
She retired from the stage in October 2009 after 17 long years of a professional career and decided to dedicate herself to being a ballet teacher. Since then, she has been a teacher at the “Escuela Superior de Música y Danza de Monterrey” ESMDM and in her own Ballet Studio, which she kept running for over 15 years. Some of her students, past and present, join the cast of several International Ballet companies.
In March 2011, Conaculta and Canal 22 invited her to participate in “Opera Prima en Movimiento”, a reality show in support of Mexican talent in ballet. She was an active member of the committee of experts of the show, where she helped select applicants and as an instructor during the development of the competition.
During 2011 she directed "Compañía de Danza Clásica y Neoclásica de Jalisco" where she got to stage and choreograph productions such as Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, and Carmen.
In 2020 she created and founded “Dance Open America” International Dance Competition. She was the competition’s Artistic Director until 2021.
Today she lives in Texas and teaches at Houston Ballet Academy and as a guest teacher all around the US.