San Francisco Chronicle: SF Ballet announces details of 2021 season with hope and a bit of uncertainty

By Joshua Kosman

18 June 2020

World premieres by choreographers Cathy Marston, Mark Morris, Danielle Rowe and Myles Thatcher — as well as a return engagement for George Balanchine’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic after a single performance in March — are among the highlights of the San Francisco Ballet’s 2021 season.

Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson announced details of the season on Thursday, June 18, under the title “Leap of Faith,” an aptly balletic rubric acknowledging the elements of uncertainty and hope that surround any planning by a performing arts organization in the current climate.

“The situation is totally un-normal right now, and we will have to be able to adjust to different situations,” Tomasson told The Chronicle in a phone interview. “The season is assuming that the city will allow us to perform and that people are willing to come. That would be the ideal.”

If that doesn’t happen by the time the season is scheduled to open on Jan. 19, Tomasson said, the company has backup plans, including the possibility of live-streaming performances from the studio.

The season’s seven programs, which run through June 27, 2021, have been arranged with the goal of keeping the two biggest and most elaborate programs at the end, in order to maximize the chances that performances will be fully possible by then. Those are the full-length story ballets “Swan Lake” (May 28-June 6) and “Romeo and Juliet” (June 18-27), both choreographed by Tomasson.

Read the full article here.