SAN FRANCISCO, May 17, 2021—San Francisco Ballet has appointed Jennie Scholick, PhD as its next Director of Education and Training, effective immediately, following an executive search process guided by Arts Consulting Group. Jennie Scholick has served as SF Ballet’s Associate Director of Audience Engagement, then Associate Director of Audience Development, since 2017; and has been the Interim Director of Education and Training since January 2021, upon the departure of former Director of Education and Training Andrea Yannone. During her time at SF Ballet, Jennie Scholick has launched and curated the organization’s public programming, adult education, and audience development initiatives, including the Meet the Artist interviews, Pointes of View lecture series, and various ballet appreciation programs such as Ballet Basics, Exploring Ballet, Ballet Chat, and Ballet Book Club; as well as produced the Meet the Artist and To the Pointe podcasts. She also spearheaded SF Ballet’s audience cultivation programs including The List, ENCORE!, and SENSORIUM. From 2017 to 2018, she served as project manager for the varied engagement programs associated with SF Ballet’s Unbound: A Festival of New Works, during which she organized Boundless: A Symposium on Ballet’s Future, an event that brought together artists, scholars, and critics to discuss the form in relation to new work, technology, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
“I am thrilled that Jennie has accepted the offer of Director of Education and Training,” says San Francisco Ballet School Director Patrick Armand. “Jennie did a wonderful job in the interim period during these troubled times. I look forward to working with her to further the goals of our department and in making San Francisco Ballet School a very special place for all involved.”
“Over the past four years, Jennie has been a part of San Francisco Ballet’s team to extend and expand our relationship with audiences,” says Executive Director Kelly Tweeddale. “With her extensive background in ballet, and her commitment to the future of the artform, I am excited for her collaboration with Patrick and our communities.”
“I’m pleased to accept the permanent position of Director of Education and Training at SF Ballet,” says Jennie Scholick. “It’s truly an honor to work with such a world-renouned team and I especially look forward to partnering closely with School Director Patrick Armand. The past decade has seen both SF Ballet School and the Education programs, including our Dance in Schools and Communities residency program, flourish and I’m pleased to build on those successes. We’re also at a crucial moment of transition for the art form: we know that there’s a need and desire to make this art form more accessible and inclusive both for its participants and its audiences and I believe SF Ballet is well-poised to do so. I’m excited to take this work forward in the upcoming months and years as we navigate our new normal.”
ABOUT JENNIE SCHOLICK
Jennie Scholick’s career has spanned arts management, scholarship, and teaching, both in higher education and performing arts organizations. She joined SF Ballet in 2017, where she has served as Associate Director of Audience Engagement and of Audience Development. As a scholar, her research and writing have appeared in Dance Chronicle, The Poetry Foundation, and in the recently published Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Ballet, among others. She was a member of the 2015 Mellon Dance Studies Summer Seminar and has presented work at conferences including the Dance Studies Association/Congress on Research in Dance, the National Dance Education Organization, and OPERA/America. In addition, she has presented about her work in the public humanities at the Stanford PhD Pathways Conference, at UCLA’s Scholars@Work seminar, and at the Dance Studies Association as part of a roundtable titled “Dance Studies in the Commons: Public Dance Scholarship outside the Academy.”
She earned her BA magna cum laude from Princeton University and her PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Los Angeles.
ABOUT EDUCATION AND TRAINING AT SAN FRANCISCO BALLET
San Francisco Ballet School’s education and training programs directly serve more than 40,000 people annually through training, learning, and performances. SF Ballet School classes and events serve 6,800 individuals. In-school dance education reaches approximately 9,000 students and youth, family, and community engagement programs impact 4,800 individuals. In addition, adult and audience programs engage approximately 22,600 people throughout the region. In 2019, SF Ballet School served approximately 500 adult students and almost 600 non-adult students, with nearly 300 students taking part in summer sessions and intensives. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, education and training programs have been offered online, both recorded and live, in order to maintain the connection to students and communities.
ABOUT SAN FRANCISCO BALLET
San Francisco Ballet, long recognized for pushing boundaries in dance, has a history of making history. The Company has enjoyed a long and rich tradition of artistic “firsts” since its founding in 1933, including performing the first American productions of Swan Lake and Nutcracker, as well as the first 20th-century American Coppélia. SF Ballet is one of the three largest ballet companies in the United States. It currently presents more than 100 performances annually, both locally and internationally. The mission of SF Ballet is to share its joy of dance with the widest possible audience—in its community and worldwide—and to provide the highest caliber of dance training in its School. Under the direction of Helgi Tomasson, the Company has achieved an international reputation as one of the preeminent ballet companies in the world. For more information visit sfballet.org.
Photo courtesy of San Francisco Ballet
For press inquiries please contact:
You You Xia
San Francisco Ballet Director of Communications
415-865-6603
E. yxia@sfballet.org