San Francisco Ballet

I have, uh, uh, a, a very dear friend called Tamara Rojo, who is a dancer.

She's the artistic director of San Francisco Ballet.

I would love to go back to one of her performances as the Black Swan in Swan Lake, which is probably one of the best things I've ever seen in my whole life.

I'd love to go back to, uh, Band Aid.

So a couple of immediate things come to mind.

The first was a donation last year to San Francisco Ballet, where Tamara Rojo was just doing her usual brilliant job on all fronts.

But I think it was $13 million.

Half went to the next season.

Oh, yeah.

The San Francisco Ballet were in London.

Yeah.

They did, I think, six shows in Sadler's Wells, and I think they did five shows in Edinburgh as well-

Yeah

... um, prior to that.

Um, and it's a, a performance by the San Francisco Ballet called Mere Mortals, and they're like the oldest ballet company in America.

Mm-hmm.

So yeah, you have a, you have a better shot at getting in any company by locking in and go to a professional school.

Because the other thing is, you know, you take like an SAB or a PNB or a San Francisco Ballet, those schools know everybody.

So if you are training and you wanna be a dancer, and let's say they didn't take you into San Francisco Ballet, but if you have San Francisco Ballet School on your resume and you go into any audition, they are automatically gonna be like, "Oh, that's a San Fran kid." And you have a much better shot because you have it on your resume and you are currently actively training there.

And so even though you might not get San Francisco Ballet, you might get one of any other companies simply because you are there training and they know you are there training and they as an institution themselves go, "Okay, I know they're getting good training and they're much more prepared for this."

Yes.

Catherine, this has been an incredible conversation.

What else musically? After this recording, so we are recording on a Saturday at the end of August, I am going to hop on a train to Edinburgh and go and see the Floating Points Ballet, or ballet for our American listeners.

It's the Mere Mortals piece that he has scored for the San Francisco Ballet and they're performing that at the Edinburgh Playhouse as part of the international festival.

It looks really good.

And I love the concept of he's doing like live boot club modular with full orchestra.

I mean,

just the San Francisco Ballet and

Symphony.

Just so everyone knows, Wicked, actually, when they tried Wicked, it's from San Francisco.

And that, by the way, is the first stage nutcracker in the U.S., Luke Christensen.

It came from Dance Caravan, started San Francisco Ballet.

And before Balanchine had his wonderful Growing Tree or whatever, Lou Christensen had his version on the West Coast.

And then I think the next thing, Elizabeth, was the music.

it.

Anyway, fast forward and just like left college and went to San Francisco Ballet and auditioned for the school and got one of the last Ford Foundation scholarships.

And within a year, I was in the company.

So it's odd, very odd.

So let's, I guess, focus a little bit more on the ballet and the choreography, but the opera, especially, you know, that's a love of mine.

So that, you know, the opera ballet, so to speak, drew my attention right away when I was doing my research on your career.

And, you know, So your roots in San Francisco ballet obviously go a lot deeper, just as you said, than choreography.

And you became a principal character dancer, which to me, especially from what you just said, fits with who you are so beautifully.