05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Ballet's new season to spotlight Forsythe and Balanchine, bring back popular classics
San Francisco Ballet's Artistic Director Tamara Rojo expects that some of her decisions for her third year of programming will surprise recent audiences.
After a 2025 season without any works by George Balanchine, the company plans to include an all-Balanchine program spotlighting the New York City Ballet founder. This will be followed by a triple bill of works by the groundbreaking American choreographer William Forsythe, who Rojo sees as further innovating Balanchine's choreographic style.
'Last season was more inspired by my legacy of work with British choreographers and also narrative ballets, and this season is a little bit more American in the works and the choreographers and the style of dancing,' Rojo told the Chronicle. 'We are an innovative and very eclectic and versatile group of artists, and I want to give the audience the most amazing experience every year and not ever become predictable.'
The coming season will also bring meaningful milestones as 2026 marks the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra's 50th anniversary, and the 20th year of Martin West's leadership as music director.
Perhaps Rojo's most striking change, however, comes in the form of a structural shakeup that breaks from the old hierarchy of corps, soloist and principal ranks for the dancers to introduce demi-soloist and first soloist ranks.
But first, the programming.
The Ballet has a history of dancing Balanchine stretching back to 1952, and with 'Balanchine: Father of American Ballet' (Feb. 10-15), the company continues that tradition. The bill will consist of three of his best-known works: 'Serenade' and the 'Diamonds' section of 'Jewels,' both set to Tchaikovsky; and 'Stars and Stripes,' a patriotic celebration set to orchestrations of John Phillips Sousa's famous marches.
To Rojo, it made perfect sense to follow the program with works by all-Forsythe, whose choreography, she said, 'is the closest thing in terms of the structure of Balanchine's musical understanding in so many ways, and in the amazing ability to create a world without narrative.'
An American who spent much of his career in Germany, Forsythe shook up the dance world with the sharp, postmodern movement of his breakthrough work titled 'in the middle, somewhat elevated' in 1987. San Francisco Ballet has danced Forsythe's work since commissioning his ballet 'New Sleep' that same year, but this will mark the company's first all-Forsythe bill (Feb. 17-March 8).
The program will bring together his recent works inspired by the avant-garde pop music of British singer James Blake, presenting 'Prologue,' 'The Barre Project,' and 'Blake Works I,' which was a local hit when San Francisco Ballet danced it in 2022.
The other four programs slated for the 2026 season include a world premiere story ballet, two classics from the 19th century and the return of ' Mere Mortals,' a ballet inspired by the moral challenges of artificial intelligence, which was first unveiled in 2023.
Following the company's traditional one-night gala program on Jan. 21, the company's 93rd season will kick off with the previously announced world premiere of resident choreographer Yuri Possokhov's full-length 'Eugene Onegin,' a co-commission with the Joffrey Ballet set to a new score by frequent Possokhov collaborator Ilya Demutsky.
'Dancers love dancing his work, and he has a real talent for narrative,' said Rojo of Possokhov, a former principal dancer who began his choreography career at San Francisco Ballet, who Rojo describes as 'one of the most awarded choreographers of our time, respected worldwide.'
Alexander Pushkin's classic Russian novel in verse, about a 19th century dandy who plays with two women's hearts and faces intense remorse, is already well-known in the dance world through John Cranko's famous ballet of the same name. But Possokhov, whose version of 'Anna Karenina' toured to the Bay Area with the Joffrey last year and was an audience hit, was passionate about pursuing his unique version of it.
'Yuri is a very emotional man, an artist through and through,' Rojo said. 'I felt that Yuri's passion for this story, the amount of years he had been thinking about it, clarity of his vision for it, means that really, I needed to trust him.'
For the classics, Rojo is bringing back Marius Petipa's ' Don Quixote ' (March 19-29), staged by Possokhov and former artistic director Helgi Tomasson, a lively comic ballet that includes some of the canon's most most challenging dancing.
It will be followed by the Romantic-era 'La Sylphide' (April 10-16), in the company's existing staging by Tomasson, which honors August Bournonville's light, bounding choreography and presents iconic ballet imagery in its corps of winged fairies.
The season will then close April 23-May 3 with a reprise of 'Mere Mortals,' a popular commission from Rojo's first programmed season in 2023 with surreal choreography by Canadian Aszure Barton. Composer and electronic music innovator Sam Shepherd, also known as Floating Points, will return to join the orchestra in performing the work's startling score from the pit.
In dancer news, Thamires Chuvas, Dylan Pierzina, Alexis Francisco Valdes and Adrian Zeisel, currently in the corps, will enter the new rank of demi-soloist. Katherine Barkman and Joshua Jack Price, currently soloists, will enter the new rank of first soloist.
Rojo said the changed rank system gives 'the opportunity to recognize progression without putting a huge amount of pressure on the individual before they are ready for it.'
She added that she was thrilled that the company could extend corps contracts to all six of last year's apprentices, who came up through the San Francisco Ballet School.
At the top of the ranks, she has hired three new principal dancers. Francesco Gabriele Frola joins from English National Ballet, Patricio Reve joins from Queensland Ballet, and Madeline Woo previously danced with the Royal Swedish Ballet.
The number of dancers will remain roughly steady with 76 company members and six apprentices.
'I'm genuinely in love with the artists in this company,' Rojo said of the roster. 'This past season has been so thrilling, because they've been able to explore so many different styles, many of them new to them. I think their progress has been outstanding in every rank.'
The 2026 season will be preceded by the company's traditional 'Nutcracker' run (Dec. 5-28), and by touring engagements at Orange County's Segerstrom Arts Center and the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
