Smuin Contemporary Ballet Returns To The Joyce Theater

San Francisco’s Smuin Contemporary Ballet will celebrate its 30th Anniversary with a return to The Joyce Theater from July 9 through July 14, 2024. The engagement will be the Company’s ninth at the Joyce and first since 2012. The program will include the New York premiere of Val Caniparoli’s Tutto Eccetto il Lavandino (“everything but the kitchen sink”); Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Tupelo Tornado; and Renaissance, choreographed by Company Associate Artistic Director Amy Seiwert. Seiwert will succeed current Artistic Director Celia Fushille, who steps away from her position following this engagement. Tickets are from $27 to $72 and are available online.

“We’re honored to be returning to New York and thrilled that the Joyce audience will experience the spirited works Smuin Contemporary Ballet has been producing and performing in the San Francisco Bay Area,” said Fushille, who became Artistic Director in 2007 following the untimely death of founder Michael Smuin. A founding member of Smuin Ballet and principal dancer for twelve years, Fushille also served as Executive Director from 2008 to 2014.

Associate Artistic Director and Choreographer Amy Seiwert enjoyed a nineteen-year performing career with Smuin, Los Angeles Chamber, and Sacramento Ballets. She retired as a dancer from Smuin in 2008; that same year, Fushille named her Choreographer in Residence, a position she held for a decade. In 2017, Seiwert’s first full-evening work, Wandering, set to Schubert’s Winterreise, was commissioned by The Joyce. Her dances are also in the repertory of ODC/Dance, Ballet Austin, BalletX, Opera Parallèle, AXIS Dance, and Oakland Ballet, among others.

Smuin Contemporary Ballet was established in 1994 by Tony- and Emmy-winning choreographer Michael Smuin (1938-2007), who set out to, in his words, “infuse ballet with the rhythm, speed, and syncopation of American popular culture.” The Company continues to push the boundaries of contemporary ballet within a distinctly modern style, combining classical ballet training, technique, and artistry with uncommon physicality and expression. Smuin choreographed more than 40 works for the Company; he also choreographed for American Ballet Theatre, San Francisco Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem and other companies. His theatrical credits include directing Sophisticated Ladies, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award in 1981, and Anything Goes, for which he won the Tony for Best Choreography in 1987. He won an Emmy Award in 1984 for A Song for Dead Warriors for PBS’s Dance in America; he was nominated for an Emmy for The Tempest in 1981.

Joyce performances are Tuesday, July 9 and Wednesday, July 10 at 7:30 p.m.; Thursday, July 11 and Friday, July 12 at 8 p.m.; Saturday, July 13 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.; and Sunday, July 14 at 2 p.m. A Curtain Chat will follow the July 10 performance. Tickets are from $27 to $72 and are available online. 

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