Under the direction of celebrated Artistic Director and Principal Choreographer Helgi Tomasson, San Francisco Ballet is the oldest professional ballet company in America and has a worldwide reputation for its vast and rich repertory, performed by a virtuoso company.
Having won the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance on its last visit to London in 2004, this time they will present three eclectic programmes over two weeks performing some of their most popular works of recent years.
Programme A features George Balanchine’s iconic large-scale work, Divertimento No. 15, set to Mozart’s chamber piece; choreographer Edwaard Liang’s abstract ballet Symphonic Dances, set to Rachmaninov’s intensely spiritual composition of the same name; and Christopher Wheeldon’s uplifting Number Nine, hailed as a “delectable paintbox of a dance” by The San Francisco Chronicle.
Programme B brings together Wheeldon’s atmospheric 2010 ballet Ghosts; Ashley Page’s highly physical Guide to Strange Places set to pulsating music by John Adams; and Trio, choreographed by Tomasson and set to Tchaikovsky’sglorious Souvenir de Florence. A visually stunning triptych of a ballet, Trio boasts set and costumes as lush as the choreography.
Programme C is comprised of four works: Mark Morris’ Beaux, a playful colourful work for nine men featuring costumes by Isaac Mizrahi; San Francisco Ballet Choreographer in Residence Yuri Possokhov’s interpretation of Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony; Possokhov’s multimedia dance theatre workRAkU, based on the story of the burning of Kyoto’s Golden Pavilion in 1950; and Christopher Wheeldon’s ethereal Within the Golden Hour, set to music by Italian composer Ezio Bossoand Vivaldi.
Performed by world class dancers, renowned for the quality, skill and versatility of their ballet technique, this production of contemporary ballet by America's oldest professional ballet company is not to be missed!