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San Fran­cisco Bal­let launch their Lon­don sea­son at London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre this even­ing, and until Septem­ber 23 they will be present­ing three mixed-bill pro­grams. That’s 10 works over nine per­form­ances, fea­tur­ing works by George Bal­anchine, Edwaard Liang, Mark Mor­ris, Ash­ley Page, Chris­topher Wheel­don, SF Bal­let chief Helgi Tomas­son, as well as their Cho­reo­grapher in Res­id­ence Yuri Possokhov.

Tomas­son is pleased to be back in London,

Lon­don is a favour­ite tour des­tin­a­tion for our Com­pany and we’re delighted to be return­ing after eight years. We are priv­ileged to work with some of the best cho­reo­graph­ers in the world and some of their new works provide a won­der­ful show­case for our dan­cers’ broad ranges and abil­it­ies. I think Lon­don audi­ences will enjoy the diverse and excit­ing works that we’ll be present­ing, almost all of which are UK premières.

That is cer­tainly true, with Num­ber Nine by Britain’s own Chris­topher Wheel­don, which he cre­ated for the com­pany last year, being presen­ted for the first time in the UK tonight. Wheeldon’s Ghosts, cre­ated for SFB in 2010 will début in the second pro­gramme — along with fel­low Brit Ash­ley Page’s Guide to Strange Places - and his Within the Golden Hour, which was com­mis­sioned by the com­pany 4 years ago, is in the last pro­gramme. In fact, the Brits go down well in San Fran­cisco with Mar­tin West being the company’s MD and Prin­cipal Conductor.

Although San Fran­cisco Bal­let always proudly bills itself as “America’s old­est pro­fes­sional bal­let com­pany”, there is little ‘Amer­ican’ about it in its com­pos­i­tion, though that is per­haps pre­cisely why it is an Amer­ican organ­iz­a­tion: multi-racial, all-embracing and extremely curi­ous about other styles and cul­tures. Just glan­cing down the list of prin­cipals shows dan­cers from Aus­tralia, Canada, Spain, Esto­nia, Armenia, Brazil, France, China, Italy, Rus­sia with one of the company’s most fam­ous names, Maria Kochet­kova, and the Cuban star Lorena Fei­joo. Only two prin­cipals, out of nine­teen, were born in the USA. Then at the company’s helm is the Icelandic Tomas­son. Eclectic indeed.

Wheel­don told The Sunday Times in August,

I love my San Fran­cisco Bal­let. It feels like home. It’s a soci­ety of cre­at­ors: they’re excited and expect­ant. They’re so ver­sat­ile. I like the bold­ness of attack and fear­less­ness, but they also keep a clas­sical line.

They cer­tainly have to be ver­sat­ile with the range of the pieces they are present­ing in Lon­don, and in a couple of months they’ll start the onslaught of Christ­mas Nutcrack­ers with 31 per­form­ances in three weeks. This is a com­pany that works hard to jus­tify its exist­ence, unlike some of the highly sub­sid­ized European out­fits. The pas­sion required to sus­tain such a pace comes from the top. As soloist Garen Price Scrib­ner says of Tomasson,

Helgi’s a col­lector of beau­ti­ful artists, and we dance with one heart.

The San Fran­cisco Bal­let are at Sadler’s Wells Theatre until Septem­ber 23.

Pho­tos from top: Maria Kochet­kova and Joan Boada in Wheeldon’s Within the Golden Hour; Yuan Yuan Tan and Rubén Martín Cintas in Wheeldon’s Num­ber Nine; Maria Kochet­kova and Frances Chung in Possokhov’s Clas­sical Sym­phony - © Erik Tomasson

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