Remembering Claire Sheridan

Empowering dancers through higher education

Claire Sheridan wore a lot of hats at San Francisco Ballet over the years. She was a dance educator, a ballet history lecturer, a longtime host of Meet the Artist interviews, a member of BRAVO supporting the company’s Parkinson’s program, and most recently, an SFB consultant working as a Dance Educator. Audiences who sat in on her Pointes of View talks knew her as the person who could make centuries of ballet history feel immediate and alive. Company members who crossed paths with her in the studio knew her as a warm, steady presence.

But ask anyone in the dance world what Claire’s legacy is, and one word comes up before any other: The LEAP Program.

In 1999, Claire founded the LEAP Program, the Bachelor of Arts degree program at Saint Mary’s College of California built specifically for current and former professional dancers. At the time, a college degree and a dance career were treated as mutually exclusive. Dancers who thought seriously about life after the stage were sometimes viewed as not fully committed to their art. Education was something most professional dancers sacrificed, often leaving them financially vulnerable and unprepared for what came next.

More than two decades later, LEAP has grown into a program spanning San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, having graduated hundreds of professional dancers who went on to careers in medicine, law, business, psychology, and beyond. It didn’t just hand dancers a diploma. It gave an entire profession permission to think about their future without being told they weren’t serious about their present. Dozens of SF Ballet dancers have studied in the program, many earning their Bachelor of Arts.

In Claire’s own words, “LEAP is now 26 years old; with an online program that serves dancers all over world. Its alumni have been accepted into top graduate schools and are enjoying new careers in a variety of different fields such as Art History, Business, Law, Psychology, Physical Therapy, Medicine, and Education. Some stay in the dance world as artistic directors or teachers. Other graduates are still dancing professionally, but with a secure sense of the future and the knowledge that with the degree they will experience a much easier career transition upon retirement from the stage. The dancers’ success has proven that it indeed benefits society to honor the dignity of dancers and recognize their capacity for work, their commitment to excellence, and their love of learning.”

Claire came to dance later than most, and by her own account, not the easy way. She built a career anyway, going on to teach jazz and American dance forms internationally, from Russia and England to Japan, Germany, and beyond, carrying the same belief everywhere she went: that dance belonged to everyone willing to work for it, not just the naturally gifted.

At San Francisco Ballet, that belief showed up in every role she took on. As a Meet the Artist host, she gave audiences a way into the minds of the dancers and choreographers they’d just watched perform. As a Pointes of View lecturer, she gave ballet history the kind of texture that turns casual fans into lifelong ones. As a BRAVO volunteer, she put that same generosity to work supporting the company’s Parkinson’s program.