A shower of flowers and a sustained standing ovation marked the end of an era: Yuan Yuan Tan’s retirement from San Francisco Ballet after almost 30 years on February 14, her 48th birthday. A muse to choreographers, an inspiration to generations of dancers, and a deeply beloved audience favorite, Tan, known as YY to friends and colleagues, played a central role in the company’s success during Helgi Tomasson’s­ long tenure as artistic director.

Retiring from the stage can feel like you’re suddenly abandoning something you’ve dedicated the better part of your life to, leaving behind the person you’d worked so hard to become. But that’s not actually the case. There are plenty of skills and lessons learned in the studio that can be brought into any workplace. Being […]

I didn’t even want to leave the house. I had made the decision to move on from my dance career, but I still wasn’t sure what I was moving on to. I hadn’t anticipated the identity crisis, and I didn’t know how to face the professional world as anything other than a dancer. It took […]

Sitting on a quiet South Carolina beach this month, I felt something I hadn’t felt in many months: the desire to move. I tried single-leg balances, some basic floorwork, headstands…formerly easy things that I now couldn’t quite do. Stunned and emotionally spiraling, I sat in the sand and let it all wash over me; it […]

You might think that, as a Royal Ballet dancer who trained at both the School of American Ballet and the Paris Opéra Ballet School, Beatriz Stix-Brunell has had enough experience of world-class institutions to last her a lifetime. But having always had an academic itch, she’s decided to scratch it—so she’s adding one more institution […]

You might think that, as a Royal Ballet dancer who trained at both the School of American Ballet and the Paris Opéra Ballet School, Beatriz Stix-Brunell has had enough experience of world-class institutions to last her a lifetime. But having always had an academic itch, she’s decided to scratch it—so she’s adding one more institution […]

Growing up on a farm in Canada, eating meals made from scratch, Steve Konopelski assumed every family always had fresh baked bread and homemade jams. “Baking was second-nature to me,” he says. “I found it very comforting.” He started dancing at 8, and trained at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School for three years at the […]

Early on in the rehearsal process of the upcoming film West Side Story, director Steven Spielberg turned to Patricia Delgado and asked her why the dancers weren’t in unison. “He was right,” remembers Delgado, who was serving as associate choreographer to her husband, choreographer Justin Peck. “I explained to him that it takes a lot […]