View Spark segment on San Francisco Ballet’s Don Quixote. Original air date: March 2003. (Running Time: 4:41)
View the Spark episode on SF Ballet’s New Works Festival. Original air date: April 2008. (Running Time 29:05)
Spark visited the San Francisco Ballet twice; once in 2003 for for a taste of the ballet classic “Don Quixote” and again in 2008 for their New Works Festival.
In celebration of its 75th anniversary, San Francisco Ballet is mounting an ambitious festival of new works by ten renowned choreographers. The ballet’s artistic director Helgi Tomasson often refers to the company as a laboratory for new ballets and conceived the New Works Festival as opportunity to look forward to the future of this centuries old art form. Spark follows the creation of three distinctively different dances by Mark Morris, Margaret Jenkins and Christopher Wheeldon.
Known for his musicality and irreverence, Morris enlists Isaac Mizrahi to design the costumes and John Adams to compose the music. Bay Area choreographer Jenkins pushes the company’s dancers into unknown territory by asking them to collaborate on the making of the dance. And heralded as the next Balanchine, Wheeldon wants to bring ballet to a new generation by infusing classical dance with contemporary elements.
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Related Episodes
SF Ballet’s New Works Festival
Meet a few choreographers who created work for the San Francisco Ballet's 75th anniversary.