Barbara Gaskill's early training was in the Buffalo/Niagara Falls area with Norma Ferrara Gelose (teacher of noted Broadway choreographer Michael Bennett and dance educator Bob Rizzo), with supplementary summer training at the former National Academy of Ballet and Theatre Arts in NYC with Thalia Mara, Arthur Mahoney, Andre Eglevsky, Igor Schwezoff, and Yurek Lazowski, and at the National Ballet of Canada with Celia Franca and others.  

She began her teacher training  in the Cecchetti method with Norma Gelose, and upon moving to the Washington, DC area after college, continued her training with Pamela Moore in the upper levels.  

As a dancer she performed with The American Contemporary Ballet Company (in Maryland, now the National Ballet), and with the historical dance company Primavera which performed her reconstructions of period dances from original 16th-century Italian dance manuscripts.

She holds an M.A. in Education/Dance, with a focus on dance history, particularly dance during the Renaissance.  She has been a consultant on period dance for Folger Shakespeare Library performances, various Renaissance festivals, and local theatrical venues.  She has taught at several area universities and studios, including George Mason University , The George Washington University, The Washington Ballet, and the University of Maryland/College Park where she was long-time faculty in Dance History and Dance Appreciation.  For more than 20 years she served as director of liturgical dance at Metropolitan Memorial United Methodist Church (now National UMC).   

As founder of The Ballet Studio, a dance outreach program in the nation's capital dedicated to encouraging literacy in and through the arts, she has worked with children from underserved populations since 1992, from the Head Start level through high school and beyond.   

For the Cecchetti Council of America's East Coast Committee, at various times she has served as Newsletter Editor, Scholarship Chairman, Secretary, Vice Chairman, Chairman, and since 1996 has been Conference Principal for the ECC's twice-yearly workshops.

She is a Fellow member of the CCA and CUSA, and is certified in the Progressing Ballet Technique (PBT) conditioning method.     

In her non-dance life (is there such a thing?), concurrent with her dance life, Barbara Gaskill worked as a journalist, first with U.S. News & World Report.  Moving on as a free-lancer, she worked as a writer and editor for a wide variety of publications, as well as a dance critic for community newspapers and Washington DanceView.  She was pleased also to help with establishing a firmer foundation for a free press in Eastern Europe, as educational coordinator for the International Media Fund and its Hungarian Journalism Project.

With Pamela Moore and Cara Drower, she is a co-founder of the Cecchetti Institute.