San Francisco Ballet Promotes Thirteen Alumni and Students to Season Roster for Spring Festival
May 11, 2022—San Francisco Ballet School (SF Ballet School) today announced the promotion of six SF Ballet School alumni to the corps de ballet, and seven students from SF Ballet School will be promoted to the Company for the 2023 Season.
The six alumni, who have served as Apprentices, are Juliana Bellissimo, Andris Kundzins, Nicole Moyer, Pemberley Ann Olson, Jamie Adele Stephens, and Alexis Valdes. Effective July 1st, seven students from SF Ballet School will be promoted to the Company for the 2023 Season: João Da Silva (Brazil) will join SF Ballet's Corps de Ballet, and Jihyun Choi (South Korea), Seojeong Yun (South Korea), Benjamin Davidoff (Belgium), Parker Garrison (North Carolina), and Bay Area natives Angela Watson and Jasper True Stanford will join the Company as Apprentices.
The promotions are an outstanding achievement considering that all thirteen dancers were forced to temporarily suspend training during the Covid-19 pandemic, and celebrate the return of the live SF Ballet School Spring Festival. With the addition of these thirteen dancers, more than 75% of SF Ballet's company members will have trained at SF Ballet School.
Following a fundraising dinner on Thursday, May 26, SF Ballet School's annual Spring Festival will present three different programs over three evenings at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The schedule is as follows:
Wednesday, May 25, 2022
Student Demonstration (Karen Gabay)
Future Paper (Dana Genshaft)
Reciprocity (Angela Watson)
Moment in the Mind (Sophia Hatton & Chase Rogers)
Diana and Acteon Pas de Deux (Marius Petipa)
Haffner Symphony (Helgi Tomasson)
Thursday, May 26, 2022
Student Demonstration (Karen Gabay)
Sunhead (Davide Occhipinti)
Haffner Symphony (Helgi Tomasson)
Friday, May 27, 2022
Student Demonstration (Karen Gabay)
Graces (Viktor Plotnikov)
Diana and Acteon Pas de Deux (Marius Petipa)
The Most Peaceful Place (Jason Ambrose)
Her Gambit (Pemberley Ann Olson)
Haffner Symphony (Helgi Tomasson)
The performances will include a new ballet by San Francisco Ballet dancer Davide Occhipinti and Helgi Tomasson's Haffner Symphony on Thursday, May 26. The Wednesday, May 25 performance will include Dana Genshaft's Future Paper, two student pieces created as part of the Helgi Tomasson Choreographic Workshop, and Marius Petipa's showpiece Diana and Acteon Pas de Deux. The Friday, May 27 performance will feature Viktor Plotnikov's Graces, San Francisco Ballet dancer Pemberley Ann Olson's Her Gambit, and a world premiere by Jason Ambrose. Each performance opens with a demonstration of the dancers in levels 2 through 8 choreographed by faculty member Karen Gabay, former principal dancer with Ballet San Jose.
The Spring Festival, which showcases young ballet stars, runs from May 25-27 at the Blue Shield of California Theater at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA). Following the Thursday, May 26 performance, the San Francisco Ballet Auxiliary and Event Chair Carrie Kaufman and Honorary Chair John Palmer will host the 2022 Spring Festival Dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel San Francisco. The dinner benefits scholarship and financial aid programs for the School, which awards more than $1.5 million to students each year. For more information, see sfballet.org.