So this is my first post for The Winger and I’m really exciting to share my experiences as a SFBS Trainee for the next year. The Trainee program is somewhat of a bridge between the gap of school and company. The Trainee program consists of 12 dancers from all over the world chosen by SF Ballet artistic director Helgi Tomasson and SFBS director Lola de Avila and is led by Jean-Yves Esquerre. We perform from October to May throughout northern California and also perform in the SFBS student showcase at the end of the school year.

Here are the this years trainees (Boys L to R: Dylan Ward, Harrison James Wynn, Stephen Jacobson, Mattia Cambiaghi, Myles Thatcher and Steven Morse)(Girls L to R: Jordan Hammond, Brynn Gilbert, Koto Ishihara, Kimberly Braylock, Kristina Lind, Sylvie Volosov)
Our first performance was this past Saturday at the grand opening of the California Academy of Sciences on this beautiful outdoor stage at Golden Gate Park. Here we performed Helgi Tomasson’s Menuetto, a pas de deux from Tomasson’s Handel: A Celebration, a contemporary pas de deux called Crumbling and Parrish Maynard’s Fractals.

One of the greatest parts of being a part of the program this year is originating a new role in Parrish Maynard’s new ballet, Fractals. The Trainee Director Jean-Yves Esquerre asked Parrish, who has choreographed for SFBS Student Showcase before, to create a contemporary ballet for the trainee’s this year. Fractals is about 15 minutes long in one movement and is performed by three couples and is set to exciting electronic music. Each couple has a separate pas de deux and and everyone has their own solo as well as several group dances.

This show was so much fun and i feel like it went really well considering we only started the school year less than a month before this show and practically fried our brains trying to remember all of the choreography. Here are some pictures from our first performance.

The outdoor stage in Golden Gate Park

Myles Thatcher, Jordan Hammond and Steven Morse in Helgi Tomasson’s Minuetto

James Wynn, Brynn Gilbert and Dylan Ward in Parrish Maynard’s Fractals