Looking Back on a Landmark Tour
From the U.S. to the U.K., discover the highlights of SF Ballet's 2026 tour
San Francisco Ballet has returned from one of its busiest touring seasons in decades. Over eight weeks, the Company performed 25 times in five cities across two continents. Our dancers brought their renowned artistry and versatile repertoire to stages across the U.S. and U.K., reaching new audiences and strengthening relationships with leading dance venues along the way. From a return to the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival 70 years in the making to the European premiere of Aszure Barton and Floating Points’ Mere Mortals at the Edinburgh International Festival, we’re looking back at highlights from the road.
Jacob's Pillow Festival
Our touring season kicked off in August with a historic return to the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Becket, Massachusetts. The Company first appeared at the Pillow back in 1956, marking its East Coast debut, which earned international acclaim and launched its first tour overseas. This year, SF Ballet’s five-day engagement featured a variety of works by Hans van Manen, William Forsythe, George Balanchine, Akram Khan, and SF Ballet Artistic Director Tamara Rojo, showcasing the breadth of the Company’s repertoire with iconic 20th-century works and groundbreaking contemporary ballets. The Berkshire Edge praised the dancers’ command of complex choreography, writing, “It was a joy to watch these beautiful dancers luxuriate in the movement.” Audience members agreed: “It was an absolutely stunning performance. It gave me goosebumps!” one said on Instagram.
Edinburgh International Festival
From Jacob’s Pillow, SF Ballet traveled across the Atlantic for the European premiere of Mere Mortals, Rojo’s first commission for the Company from her inaugural 2024 season. Mere Mortals closed out the Edinburgh International Festival, the Company’s first time back to the celebrated global event in over 20 years. Electronic musician and composer Floating Points performed his original score live with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, conducted by SF Ballet’s Shelby and Frederick Gans Music Director and Principal Conductor Martin West. Drawing on the myth of Pandora and Prometheus, the production speaks to the unprecedented speed at which new technology is evolving. Critics took notice of the work. The Guardian called it “a dazzling, maddening ballet for the AI age,” praising its “spectacular collision of dance, music and digital wizardry” and adding, “I’d be lying if I said I was anything other than completely hooked throughout.”
Sadler's Wells Theatre
The Company’s next stop was London, heading into a nearly sold-out run at Sadler’s Wells Theatre. Mere Mortals anchored the venue’s autumn season from September 9–12, with Floating Points performing his score live once again, this time with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia. The London Box Office called the production “a must-watch for anyone looking for thought-provoking, political performances. It’s an impactful and incredibly relevant piece of art that leaves you wondering about the future and questioning where we draw the line between human and machine.”
Ballet Bend
Back in the States, SF Ballet traveled to Bend, Oregon, for Ballet Bend’s inaugural festival at the Tower Theatre. Principal Dancers Jasmine Jimison and Harrison James performed Ben Stevenson’s Three Preludes, a romantic pas de deux set to three of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s preludes. The work offered a different facet of the Company’s repertoire, pairing intimate choreography with Rachmaninoff’s lush score, as part of a mixed-bill also featuring Portland’s Open Space Dance and Charlotte Ballet.
Fall for Dance Festival
The summer tour concluded with a return to New York City Center for the 23rd annual Fall for Dance Festival, following our appearance last year with the New York debut of Akram Khan’s Dust. This year, Demi Soloist Jacey Gailliard and Principal Dancer Wei Wang brought the Company debut of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s Faun for the September 30 and October 1 performances. A modern interpretation of Vaslav Nijinsky’s breakthrough work L’après-midi d’un faune, created for the Ballets Russe in 1912, the piece maintains the sensual, animalistic qualities of the original. Broadway World called the performance “fascinating from the first minute to the last” and praised the dancers’ “remarkable control.” The New York performances ran ahead of Faun’s West Coast premiere, coming this April as part of SF Ballet’s Divine Creatures program.
Now that the miles traveled are behind them, our incredible dancers are back in the studio, working diligently on the breathtaking season ahead. But the impact of our 2026 touring season stays with us: new audiences turned fans, relationships renewed, and lifelong memories created. It reminds us just how far SF Ballet’s vision resonates around the world.
