California is rich in dance history. In classical ballet, California is home to the oldest professional ballet company in the United States. The San Francisco Ballet, founded as the San Francisco Opera Ballet in 1933, [1] predates both American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet. Barbara Crockett founded the Sacramento Ballet in 1954 [2] and hosted the first festival for the Pacific Western Region of Regional Dance America in 1966. [3] In modern dance, Ruth St. Denis established her second school in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles in 1940 while Lester Horton created the Horton Dance Group in 1934, [4] also in Los Angeles. Ann Halprin founded the San Francisco Dancers’ Workshop in 1950 and continues to live and work in the San Francisco Bay Area. [5] The Bay Area in also home to Alonzo King's Lines Ballet and Oberlin Dance Collective.
Dance in the United States | ||
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AK, AL, AR, AS, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DC, DE FL, GA, GU, HI, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MP, MS, MT NC, ND, NE, NH, NM, NV, NJ, NY, OH OK, OR, PA, PR, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT VA, VI, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY |
BA | BFA | MFA | PHD | |
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Mills College [12] | √ | √ | √ | |
UC Irvine [13] [14] | √ | √* | √ | |
UCLA [15] | √ | √ | √* |
*BFA in Choreography/Performance
Crockett is a census-designated place (CDP) in Contra Costa County, in the East Bay sub-region of the San Francisco Bay Area, California. The population was 3,094 at the 2010 census. It is located 28 miles northeast of San Francisco. Other nearby communities include Port Costa, Martinez, Vallejo, Benicia, Rodeo, Hercules, Pinole and Richmond.
The Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts, founded in 1915 by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn in Los Angeles, California, helped many perfect their dancing talents and became the first dance academy in the United States to produce a professional dance company. Some of the school's more notable pupils include Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Lillian Powell, Charles Weidman, Jack Cole, and silent film star Louise Brooks. The school was especially renowned for its influence on ballet and experimental modern dance. In time, Denishawn teachings reached another school location as well - Studio 61 at the Carnegie Hall Studios.
Sacramento Ballet was founded in 1954 by Barbara Crockett and Deane Crockett. During Ms. Crockett’s tenure as Company Director, Sacramento Ballet gained national recognition as one of the finest regional ballet companies. Through community support, the formation of the Ballet Guild, and grants from the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission, California Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ballet grew to become a resident company of professional dancers. In 1986, having accomplished her goal of making Sacramento Ballet a professional company, Ms. Crockett retired as Company Director.
The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) is a performing and media arts college of the University of Cincinnati in Cincinnati, Ohio. Initially established as the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music in 1867, CCM is one of the oldest continually operating conservatories in the US.
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) is a multi-disciplinary contemporary arts center in San Francisco, California, United States. Located in Yerba Buena Gardens, YBCA features visual art, performance, and film/video that celebrates local, national, and international artists and the Bay Area's diverse communities. YBCA programs year-round in two landmark buildings—the Galleries and Forum by Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki and the adjacent Theater by American architect James Stewart Polshek and Todd Schliemann. Betti-Sue Hertz served as Curator from 2008 through 2015.
Natasha Katz is an American lighting designer for the theatre, dance, and opera.
Jewels is a three-act ballet created for the New York City Ballet by co-founder and founding choreographer George Balanchine. It premièred on Thursday, 13 April 1967 at the New York State Theater, with sets designed by Peter Harvey and lighting by Ronald Bates.
The Isadora Duncan Dance Awards or Izzies honor San Francisco Bay Area dance artists for outstanding achievements in a range of categories including: choreography, sustained achievement, individual performance, company performance, costume design, and set design. The awards are presented annually and named in honor of Isadora Duncan. The awards began in 1986 and were revitalized in 2004 via a partnership with Bay Area National Dance Week after a slump due, in part, to a perceived lack of credibility.
ODC, formerly the Oberlin Dance Collective, is a contemporary dance and arts organization founded in 1971, in Oberlin, Ohio, by current artistic director Brenda Way. ODC relocated to San Francisco in 1976 and in 1979 became the first modern dance company in America to build its own facility, from which it still operates. ODC comprises ODC/Dance, its contemporary dance company, ODC Theater, and ODC School, which provides classes and training for youth, teen, and adult dancers.
Carla Lucero is an American composer and librettist. A native of Manhattan Beach, California, she now resides in Napa, California. She is of New Mexican and South Asian descent. While at CalArts, she studied with composers Rand Steiger, Leonard Rosenman and Alan Chapman. Her work is concentrated in opera, ballet and chamber
The Museum of Performance + Design, formerly the San Francisco Performing Arts Library & Museum, is located in the Bayview District of San Francisco, California at 2200 Jerrold Avenue, Ste. T. The Museum collects and makes accessible materials about the performing arts, with a special emphasis on documenting and preserving the San Francisco Bay Area’s rich and diverse performing arts heritage from the Gold Rush to the present. The museum produces public and educational programs, provides library services to researchers, and conservation and archival services to performing arts institutions. The Museum's collection includes personal papers of prominent artists, original costumes and design renderings, audio-visual recordings of live performances, original artwork, other artifacts, and ephemera. The Museum also serves as the official archives for many local performing arts organizations including the San Francisco Ballet, San Francisco Opera, Stern Grove Festival, and the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival.
Modern dance is a broad genre of western concert or theatrical dance which included dance styles such as ballet, folk, ethnic, religious, and social dancing; and primarily arose out of Europe and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was considered to have been developed as a rejection of, or rebellion against, classical ballet, and also a way to express social concerns like socioeconomic and cultural factors.
Mark Cavagnero Associates is a San Francisco, California-based architecture firm, founded by Mark Cavagnero, FAIA in 1988. The Firm's portfolio is of various public-serving projects for public, non-profit and institutional clients.
The New Jersey Ballet is a ballet company based in Livingston, New Jersey in the United States, founded in 1958 by native New Jerseyan Carolyn Clark and her fellow dancer, George Tomal.
The Alonzo King LINES Ballet (AKLB) is an American contemporary ballet company based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The ballet company, founded by choreographer Alonzo King, premiered at San Francisco State University's McKenna Theatre in 1982.
Alonzo King, born in Georgia to civil-rights activists Slater King and Valencia King Nelson, is an American dancer and choreographer based in San Francisco. King grew up in Georgia and California, and, as an adult, decided his contribution would be teaching and choreography. In 1982, having established himself as a well-respected teacher, he founded Alonzo King LINES Ballet. Believing that everyone has the potential to grow through dance, seven years later he opened what was then known as the San Francisco Dance Center, offering classes for both professionals and the community.
Clayton George Bailey, was an American artist who worked primarily in the mediums of ceramic and metal sculpture.
Lea Elizabeth Ved is an American contemporary dancer and choreographer. She was a second soloist contemporary dancer at the Royal Swedish Ballet, dancing with the company from 2016 until 2018. Ved currently dances with Nederlands Dans Theater.
Amy Seiwert is an American contemporary ballet choreographer and artistic director. She is the founder and artistic director of Amy Seiwert’s Imagery, a contemporary ballet company in San Francisco.
Black women have been traditionally underrepresented in ballet. In the 15th and 16th centuries, ballet began in Italian Renaissance courts, where it was largely dominated and influenced by the aristocracy. Ballet later spread to France and was developed under Louis XIV. After the first professional theatrical ballet company, the Paris Opera Ballet, was established in 1669, ballet spread throughout Europe and the rest of the world. Ballet eventually arrived in the United States, and by 1933, the San Francisco Ballet, the first professional ballet company in the United States, was founded.