Kaori Ogasawara was born in Japan and she studied ballet with her grandmother, Kazue Ogasawara, and Takao Hisamitsu. In 1993, she came to the US to train at the Boston Ballet School and later danced at Boston Ballet before joining Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre in 1999 with her husband, Christopher Rendall-Jackson. She was promoted to soloist in 2004. She has performed in several galas and appeared as a guest artist in the roles of Swanhilda in Coppelia, Aurora in Sleeping Beauty, the Sylph in La Sylphide, and the balcony Pas de Deux from John Cranko’s Romeo and Juliet. After joing PBT, she performed many featured roles including the Sugar Plum Fairy and Marie in Terrence S. Orr’s The Nutcracker, Myrtha in Giselle, Mercedes in Don Quixote, Svetlana in Ben Stevenson’s Dracula, Queen of Hearts in Derek Dean’s Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland. She also had many opportunities to dance George Balanchine’s ballet including the Russian Lead Girl in Serenade, Sylvia Grand Pas de duex, Theme and variation, Divertimento No. 15, and Who cares?. She has also performed in contemporary ballets by choreographers such as Paul Taylor, Dwight Rhoden, and Jean-Christophe Maillot. Ms. Ogasawara and her husband retired from the stage in 2009, and they are the proud parents of two children, Emiya and Hana.