Michael Tilson Thomas is an American conductor, pianist and composer. He is currently music director of the San Francisco Symphony, and artistic director of the New World Symphony, an American orchestral academy based in Miami Beach, Florida.
New York City Ballet (NYCB) is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company. Léon Barzin was the company's first music director. City Ballet grew out of earlier troupes: the Producing Company of the School of American Ballet, 1934; the American Ballet, 1935, and Ballet Caravan, 1936, which merged into American Ballet Caravan, 1941; and directly from the Ballet Society, 1946.
Alvin Ailey was an African-American choreographer and activist who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Ailey School in New York City. He is credited with popularizing modern dance and revolutionizing African-American participation in 20th-century concert dance. His company gained the nickname "Cultural Ambassador to the World" because of its extensive international touring. Ailey's choreographic masterpiece Revelations is believed to be the best known and most often seen modern dance performance. In 1977, Ailey was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP. He received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1988. In 2014, President Barack Obama selected Ailey to be a posthumous recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Lar Lubovitch is an American choreographer. He founded his own dance company, the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company in 1968. Based in New York City, the company has performed in all 50 American states as well as in more than 30 countries. As of 2005, he had choreographed more than 100 dances for the company. In addition to the company, Lubovitch has also done creative work in ballet, ice-skating venues, and musical theater notably "Into the Woods". He has played a key role in raising funds to fight AIDS.
Mark William Morris is an American dancer, choreographer and director whose work is acclaimed for its craftsmanship, ingenuity, humor, and at times eclectic musical accompaniments. Morris is popular among dance aficionados, the music world, as well as mainstream audiences.
Yvonne Rainer is an American dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker, whose work in these disciplines is regarded as challenging and experimental. Her work is sometimes classified as minimalist art. Rainer currently lives and works in New York.
Oregon Ballet Theatre (OBT) is a ballet company in Portland, Oregon, United States. The company performs an annual five-program season at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts and conducts regional and national tours. It was featured in the October/November 2007 issue of Pointe magazine, with principal dancer Kathi Martuza on the cover.
San Francisco Ballet is a ballet company, founded in 1933 as the San Francisco Opera Ballet under the leadership of ballet master Adolph Bolm. The company is currently based in the War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, under the direction of Helgi Tomasson. San Francisco Ballet was the first professional ballet company in the United States. It is among the world's leading dance companies, presenting more than 100 performances annually, with a repertoire that spans both classical and contemporary ballet. Along with American Ballet Theatre and the New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet has been described as part of the "triumvirate of great classical companies defining the American style on the world stage today".
William Langson Lathrop was an American Impressionist landscape painter and founder of the art colony at New Hope, Pennsylvania. He is sometimes referred to as a "Pennsylvania Impressionist". Lathrop was a member of the National Academy of Design and served on numerous exhibition juries during his career. He received a gold medal at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition (1915) in San Francisco, California, which showcased works by many of the major American artists of the time. Today, Lathrop's paintings are in numerous museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.
The Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts is a public arts high school in San Francisco, California, United States, which offers students an alternative college preparatory experience: a full academic curriculum complemented by a pre-professional arts training program in which students develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The creative community at SOTA is a socioeconomically and ethnically diverse population, representative of the celebrated diversity of San Francisco. It is within the Twin Peaks area.
Gustave Albert Lansburgh was an American architect largely known for his work on luxury cinemas and theaters. He was the principal architect of theaters on the West Coast from 1900 to 1930.
Timothy Ludwig Pflueger was a prominent architect, interior designer and architectural lighting designer in the San Francisco Bay Area in the first half of the 20th century. Together with James R. Miller, Pflueger designed some of the leading skyscrapers and movie theaters in San Francisco in the 1920s, and his works featured art by challenging new artists such as Ralph Stackpole and Diego Rivera. Rather than breaking new ground with his designs, Pflueger captured the spirit of the times and refined it, adding a distinct personal flair. His work influenced later architects such as Pietro Belluschi.
Helgi Tomasson is artistic director and principal choreographer for San Francisco Ballet, and a former professional ballet dancer. Since assuming leadership of San Francisco Ballet, he has helped transform the company from a respected regional troupe to one of the world's great classical ballet companies. He is originally from Iceland.
John Clifford, born June 12, is the founder/artistic director of the original Los Angeles Ballet (1974–85), and the chamber-sized touring ensemble, Ballet of Los Angeles (1988–91) and the creator of “CASABLANCA, THE DANCE” produced by Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures, Inc. and his Los Angeles Dance Theater. Before that time, Clifford was a principal dancer and choreographer with George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet (1966–74), and guest artist from 1974–80, and was widely considered to be Balanchine’s protégé. He choreographed his first ballets for the NYC Ballet under Balanchine at age 20, thus making him the second-youngest choreographer in history ever to be attached to a major company. The first was Balanchine himself, who was 20 yrs-old when he choreographed his first ballet for Serge Diaghilev's "Ballets Russes." During his time with Balanchine, in his early 20s, he also was a guest choreographer with companies ranging from the San Francisco Ballet, to the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, to the Deutsche Oper Ballet in Berlin. Clifford's works were also featured in many TV shows and movies, such as "Flashdance," "The Man Who Loved Women," and TV series such as "Dynasty," "Glitter," and other shows produced by Blake Edwards and Aaron Spelling.
Margaret Jenkins is a postmodern choreographer based in San Francisco, California. She was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1980 and in 2003, San Francisco mayor, Willie Brown, declared April 24 to be Margaret Jenkins Day.
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.
Ronald Chase is an American artist, photographer, educator, independent film maker and opera designer. His work with projection and film has been called "one of the most exciting developments in the history of opera stage presentation."
The Oklahoma City Ballet is a professional dance company and school located in Oklahoma City. The company began under the artistic direction of Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo dancers Yvonne Chouteau and Miguel Terekhov in the Science and Arts Foundation building on the Oklahoma City Fairgrounds,
The Lathrop House was built in Redwood City, California and is one of the San Francisco Peninsula's oldest mansions. Mary C. Lathrop, wife of Benjamin G. Lathrop, bought the land for the 11 room house in 1858 and construction was completed in 1863. It is currently closed as the city prepares to move it a few blocks to make way for new development. The new location is adjacent to the Redwood City History Museum.
Jenny Hunter Groat was an American dancer, choreographer, painter, calligrapher, book artist and educator.
