Student Matinees
Performances designed for K-12 school groups
About student matinees
Introduce your students to the excitement of live dance and music by joining San Francisco Ballet for our Student Matinee performances. These ballet performances captivate students’ imaginations with dazzling choreography, memorable music, spectacular sets and costumes, and are a wonderful way to expose students to the transformative power of the performing arts.
Each 70-minute interactive program includes:
- An introduction to ballet as an art form
- Excerpts from some of the Company’s most extraordinary works performed by SF Ballet professional dancers and SF Ballet School students, accompanied by the SF Ballet Orchestra
- A comprehensive digital Educator’s Guide with standards-based resources and context to help your students explore the story, characters, and art form
- Insights into the career of a professional dancer with SF Ballet
Bring your school group
2026–27 STUDENT MATINEE PERFORMANCES
SF Ballet is pleased to present two Student Matinee performances this school year for Bay Area K–12 students to experience the joy and wonder of a live ballet performance in the historic SF War Memorial Opera House.
STUDENT MATINEE: NUTCRACKER
DATE: Tuesday, December 8, 2026
TIME: 11:30AM–12:40PM
PERFORMANCE: Nutcracker (Act 1)
TICKETS: $15 per person. The ticket request form for the Nutcracker Student Matinee will open on September 1 and close on October 5, 2026. Due to high demand, this performance will sell out. Schools will be placed on the waitlist once capacity has been reached.
ABOUT THE BALLET: Click here to learn more about SF Ballet’s production of the Nutcracker, choreographed by Helgi Tomasson to music composed by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
STUDENT MATINEE: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
DATE: Tuesday, March 23, 2027
TIME: 11:30AM–12:40PM
PERFORMANCE: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Act 1)
TICKETS: $15 per person. Mark your calendar – the ticket request form for the Student Matinee of A Midsummer Night’s Dream will open on November 1, 2026.
ABOUT THE BALLET: Click here to learn more about A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a ballet adaptation of Shakespeare’s magical story about fairies, humans, and woodland creatures, choreographed by George Balanchine to music composed by Felix Mendelssohn.
HOW TO REQUEST TICKETS
Submit the Student Matinee Ticket Request Form online. We request that one teacher, principal, or school administrator complete the form for their entire school group using their school email address. Due to the limited availability of tickets, submitting a ticket request form does not guarantee that your school will receive tickets. Priority goes to Bay Area public schools and Title I schools.*
After your ticket request is approved, SF Ballet’s Ticketing department will contact your school to process payment and confirm your group’s ticket order. Please allow three weeks, or until the ticket window closes, to be contacted about payment. To secure your reservation, payment is required in full. Seats will be assigned once full payment has been received. Until then, seating and availability cannot be guaranteed.
*Homeschool groups, private and parochial schools interested in watching the full 2-Act performance of Nutcracker or A Midsummer Night’s Dream should contact Ticket Services at groups@sfballet.org or 415-865-2000 to inquire about discounted group ticket rates.
Getting There
The performance takes place at the historic SF War Memorial Opera House at 301 Van Ness Avenue. Public transportation via Muni and BART is convenient, and parking is available nearby. All school groups are responsible for their own transportation.
Questions?
Contact us at education@sfballet.org or Ticket Services at 415-865-2000.
Discover More
SF Ballet School
San Francisco Ballet School offers a challenging curriculum, taught by faculty members drawn from the ranks of San Francisco Ballet and companies around the world.