Bertina Sixto Dew is Executive Director of Kingsport Ballet. She formed the Parents Coalition in 1999, merging the then Kingsport Guild of Ballet with State of Franklin Dance Alliance, resulting in the non-profit Kingsport Ballet. Ms. Dew led the search committee which recruited Valeria Sinyavskaya, artistic director and ballet mistress from Russia by way of Tokyo, Japan, in 2001. She has been instrumental in organizing numerous collaborations between regional arts and non-arts organizations since the year 2000. She has served as grant writer and fundraiser for the organization, in addition to being costume and set designer for Kingsport Ballet’s productions of such ballets as Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, Giselle and Nutcracker. She has been active in the implementation of the DANCE CO project (Developing Artists and Nurturing Cultural Education through Community Outreach), which works with non-arts, community organizations such as Boys and Girls Club, Girls, Inc. and area elementary schools serving at-risk children, to provide classical ballet instruction at no cost to the students. Ms. Dew secured a National Endowment for the Arts grant for the outreach program in 2006. Prior to her becoming executive director, she specialized in oil portraits and murals, and worked in Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Augusta, GA. She received a Masters degree in Art Therapy from the George Washington University and a Bachelors in Art Education from Florida State University. She is originally from Uruguay and currently lives in Kingsport, Tennessee with her husband Michael. They have three daughters. Ms. Dew received the Arts Council of Greater Kingsport’s Arts Leadership award in 2010. She led the renovation of Kingsport Ballet’s new 15,000 square foot facility, which includes four spacious dance studios, an arts wing offering instruction in musical instruments and art, and a fitness and wellness lounge providing physical therapy and massage services.