The Spring Festival will celebrate the 90th anniversary of San Francisco Ballet School, the official school of SF Ballet and the oldest professional ballet academy in America, and will include a fundraising dinner on May 25 honoring SF Ballet School Director Patrick Armand and his transformative impact on the school.
The Spring Festival includes three evenings of varying programs that highlight the talent in the School, from young students beginning their training to advanced students on the verge of professional dance careers. Curated by Armand, the 2023 Spring Festival performances feature a world premiere by Myles Thatcher, an SF Ballet Soloist whose ballets include COLORFORMS and Otherness, and whose choreographic career started at SF Ballet School; and an excerpt from former SF Ballet Artistic Director Lew Christensen’s Beauty and the Beast (1958) in celebration of the School’s historic 90th anniversary.
San Francisco Ballet School Trainees in Petipa’s Diana & Acteon Pas de Deux // © Lindsay Thomas
Since its establishment in 2004, the San Francisco Ballet School Trainee Program boasts a 100% rate of dancers who are engaged by professional ballet companies (San Francisco Ballet, The Joffrey Ballet, Boston Ballet, Mariinsky Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, English National Ballet, Royal Swedish Ballet, and Royal Danish Ballet…)
Designed to ease dancers’ transition from the studio classroom to the professional stage, the one-to-two year pre-professional program offers free tuition and housing to Trainees. In addition to their own rigorous training schedule with SF Ballet School faculty, trainees also participate in rehearsals with the Company and are invited to perform in corps de ballet roles in full-length SF Ballet productions. Trainees maintain a robust performance schedule elsewhere throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and on tour worldwide; the students have performed in venues such as the New National Theatre in Tokyo, Palais Garnier in Paris, in New York.
Come and see the Ballet stars of tomorrow!
Dates: Wednesday, May 24 at 7:30 PM
Thursday, May 25 at 6 PM ( Fundraising dinner to follow the performance at Four Seasons Hotel San Francisco)
Friday, May 26 at 7:30 PM
Address: Blue Shield of California Theater at YBCA – 700 Howard Street – San Francisco
Buy tickets, click here (25$)
