San Francisco Ballet Reveals Company Roster for 2023–24 Season

San Francisco Ballet has announced the appointment of eight new corps de ballet members and new and returning character artists. Effective July 1, Katharine Lee, Hui-Wen Peng, and Simone Pompignoli are appointed to SF Ballet’s corps de ballet, and apprentices Jihyun Choi, Benjamin Davidoff, Jasper True Stanford, Angela Watson, and Seojeong Yun are promoted to the corps de ballet. Former Principal Dancers Joanna Berman, Pascal Molat, and Tiit Helimets and longtime SF Ballet School faculty Kristi DeCaminada and Jeffrey Lyons will join as character artists.

Parker Garrison, who began the 2022–23 Season as an apprentice, was promoted to the corps de ballet in January. SF Ballet will announce additional corps de ballet members later this summer.

New Members

Katharine Lee is a graduate of English National Ballet School, and previously studied with The Washington School of Ballet from 2009 to 2018. Currently at Northern Ballet, Lee’s repertoire has included Swan Lake (Four Cygnets), The Great Gatsby (Young Daisy), and corps roles in Mthuthuzeli November’s Wailers and Drew McOnie’s Merlin. She performed in Akram Khan’s Giselle while at ENB School and attended the SF Ballet School summer program studying with Patrick Armand, Tina LeBlanc, and Sofiane Sylve in 2017 and 2018.

Hui-Wen Peng was born in Taichung, Taiwan and began her initial training with Peiyu Wu and Maiying Lin. In 2015, she won the Taiwan Grand Prix gold medal, which awarded Peng a full scholarship to National Conservatory Dance School of Lisbon and The Harid Conservatory, where she received the Dance Study Award in 2016 and 2017. She began to study at The Washington School of Ballet under the direction of Xiomara Reyes and Rinat Imaev in 2017. Peng became a trainee for The Washington Ballet under the direction of Julie Kent and former SF Ballet Principal Dancer Ruben Martin for the 2018–19 season. From 2019 to 2022, Peng was a member of Atlanta Ballet II under the direction of former SF Ballet Principal Dancer Gennadi Nedvigin, where her repertory included principal roles in The Swan Princess and Snow White, both choreographed by Bruce Wells. In 2022, Peng was awarded the silver medal in the senior category at the Helsinki International Ballet Competition.

Simone Pompignoli was born in Forli, Italy, and began his ballet training at the Ateneo Danza. Pompignoli attended the 2013 Youth American Grand Prix competition in Belgium where he made it to the finals in New York; during that time, he attended the American Ballet Theatre’s Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis School. In September 2014 he began training at the John Cranko School. During his time in Germany, Simone had the opportunity to dance in several pieces for the school including Italiana by Nicola Biasutti, Alrededor no hay nada by Goyo Montero, and Classical Symphony by SF Ballet Choreographer in Residence Yuri Possokhov.  He completed his ballet training at John Cranko School in 2018 under the guidance of Dimitri Magitov, joining Tulsa Ballet II later that year. Simone joined the Tulsa Ballet in 2020 as an apprentice and joined the corps de ballet in 2021.  While at the Tulsa Ballet his corps repertoire has included Val Caniparoli’s The Nutcracker, Ben Stevenson’s Dracula, and Vendetta by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa.

                                                                       

New Apprentices

Six SF Ballet School Trainees have been named apprentices for the 2023­–24 season: Sofia Albers, Raphaël Brunais Besse, Eduardo Cazarez, Jacey Gailliard, Mimi Lamar, and Dylan Pierzina. As apprentices, dancers will take company class and perform corps de ballet roles in SF Ballet productions.

Please contact Kate McKinney, Senior Manager, PR at kmckinney@sfballet.org with any questions. Headshots of Lee, Peng, and Pompignoli are available in the press photo database (login required).

Promotions/Level

Jihyun Choi/corps de ballet

Benjamin Davidoff/corps de ballet

Jasper True Stanford/corps de ballet

Angela Watson/corps de ballet

Seojeong Yun/corps de ballet

Parker Garrison/corps de ballet (previously announced)

New Character Artists

Joanna Berman/Character Artist

Kristi DeCaminada/Character Artist

Tiit Helimets/Character Artist

Jeffrey Lyons/Character Artist

Pascal Molat/Character Artist

New Company Members/Level

Katharine Lee/corps de ballet

Hui-Wen Peng/corps de ballet

Simone Pompignoli/corps de ballet

New Apprentices/Training 

Sofia Albers/San Francisco Ballet School

Raphaël Brunais Besse/San Francisco Ballet School

Eduardo Cazarez/San Francisco Ballet School

Jacey Gailliard/San Francisco Ballet School

Mimi Lamar/San Francisco Ballet School

Dylan Pierzina/San Francisco Ballet School

SAN FRANCISCO BALLET 2023–24 REPERTORY SEASON

ARTISTS OF THE COMPANY

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Tamara Rojo

ASSOCIATE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Kerry Nicholls

PRINCIPAL DANCER
Frances Chung

Sasha De Sola

Nikisha Fogo

Angelo Greco

Esteban Hernández

Isaac Hernández

Luke Ingham

Misa Kuranaga

Wona Park

Aaron Robison

Jennifer Stahl

Yuan Yuan Tan

Joseph Walsh

Wei Wang

WanTing Zhao

CHARACTER ARTISTS

Joanna Berman

Ricardo Bustamante

Val Caniparoli

Kristi DeCaminada

Tiit Helimets

Jeffrey Lyons

Pascal Molat

Katita Waldo

SOLOISTS

Katherine Barkman

Cavan Conley

Diego Cruz

Daniel Deivison-Oliveira

Isabella Devivo

Ellen Rose Hummel

Jasmine Jimison

Norika Matsuyama

Steven Morse

Sasha Mukhamedov

Elizabeth Powell

Julia Rowe

Henry Sidford

Myles Thatcher

Lonnie Weeks
 

CORPS DE BALLET

Kamryn Baldwin

Juliana Bellissimo

Sean Bennett

Samantha Bristow

Olivia Brothers

Jihyun Choi

Thamires Chuvas

Rubén Cítores Nieto

Benjamin Davidoff

Luca Ferrò

Parker Garrison

Gabriela Gonzalez

Lleyton Ho

Anatalia Hordov

Blake Johnston

Andris Kundzins

Katharine Lee

SunMin Lee

Elizabeth Mateer

Carmela Mayo

Swane Messaoudi

Nicole Moyer

Davide Occhipinti

Pemberley Ann Olson

Hui-Wen Peng

João Percilio da Silva

Simone Pompignoli

Joshua Jack Price

Leili Rackow

Nathaniel Remez

Alexander Reneff-Olson

Jacob Seltzer

Jasper True Stanford

Tyla Steinbach

Jamie Adele Stephens

Alexis Francisco Valdes

Mingxuan Wang

Maggie Weirich

Angela Watson

Seojeong Yun

Adrian Zeisel

APPRENTICES

Sofia Albers

Raphaël Brunais Besse

Eduardo Cazarez

Jacey Gailliard

Mimi Lamar

Dylan Pierzina

EXECUTIVE REHEARSAL DIRECTOR

Felipe Diaz

REHEARSAL DIRECTORS

Joanna Berman

Ricardo Bustamante

Tina LeBlanc

Katita Waldo

CHOREOGRAPHER IN RESIDENCE

Yuri Possokhov

MUSIC DIRECTOR AND PRINCIPAL CONDUCTOR

Martin West

To post a comment, you must register and login.