Bernadette has been in the classical ballet world for more than 40 years. She began performing professionally with the Seattle Opera as a child dancer in the production of the opera Aida where she worked with Maggie Black and Suzanne Erlon. She went on to training in dance with an emphasis on Ballet at Olympic Ballet Theater and Ewajo Dance Center in Washington State, before moving to the Washington, DC area where she attended Duke Ellington School of the Arts and Jones Haywood school of Ballet (The first African American School of Ballet in the USA.). She performed with the Capital Ballet Guild in Washington, DC during her high school years. Prior to graduating from high school, she was invited personally by Mr. Arthur Mitchell to attend Dance Theater of Harlem Pre-professional ballet training program in New York City, NY. During her time in New York, she also had the privilege to travel to Kalamazoo Michigan to train at the Russian Ballet Seminar being held at the University of Central Michigan. She was the first African American female to be accepted into the advance levels of training. She trained under Jurgen Schneider (former private coach of Mikhail Baryshnikov and former ballet master of American Ballet Theater (ABT). Bernadette has also trained under the following teachers: Ms. Doris Jones, Sandra Fortune-Green (Prima Ballerina and first African-American dancer to place at the Prix ballet competition), Peter Romero, Lloyd Whitmore, Lynn Welters, Triana Alexander, Ma