Gonzalo Garcia to leave SFB after this season

[Paul Parish]

This is an official press release from SanFrancisco Ballet

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRINCIPAL DANCER GONZALO GARCIA TO DEPART SAN FRANCISCO BALLET FOLLOWING THE 2007 REPERTORY SEASON

SAN FRANCISCO, Wednesday, April 4, 2007

San Francisco Ballet Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson today announced that Principal Dancer Gonzalo Garcia will leave the Company following the 2007 Repertory Season. Garcia, who has danced with SF Ballet since 1998, intends to remain active in the ballet world and will perform several engagements with Christopher Wheeldon's new company, Morphoses, as a guest dancer this summer and fall.

"Over the past twelve years it has been a pleasure to watch Gonzalo develop from a young student in the School into an accomplished principal dancer," said Tomasson. "I wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors."

Born in Zaragoza, Spain, Garcia began his training at Estudio de Danza María de Avila. In 1995, he enrolled in San Francisco Ballet School, and that same year he became the youngest dancer to win the gold medal at the Prix de Lausanne competition. During his twelve-year tenure with San Francisco Ballet, both in the School and Company, Garcia has performed a diverse array of works from the SF Ballet Repertory. As a student in the School he performed Tomasson's Simple Symphony and the pas de deux from Bournonville's Flower Festival at Genzano. As a Company member he has danced numerous leading roles, including Romeo in Tomasson's Romeo & Juliet, Basilio in Tomasson/Possokhov's Don Quixote, Prince Siegfried in Tomasson's Swan Lake, and Albrecht in Tomasson's Giselle, among others. Garcia has had works created for him by notable choreographers, including Lar Lubovitch, Mark Morris, Helgi Tomasson, Stanton Welch, and Christopher Wheeldon. In addition, he has performed works by George Balanchine, William Forsythe, Sir Kenneth MacMillan, Wayne McGregor, Jerome Robbins, and Hans van Manen. He has toured extensively and made guest appearances in eminent theaters throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.

Garcia will perform in Lubovitch's Elemental Brubeck, Balanchine's Symphony in C, and Tomasson/Possokhov's Don Quixote during the 2007 Repertory Season. For more information on the 2007 Repertory Season, please visit www.sfballet.org.

San Francisco Ballet

As America's oldest professional ballet company, San Francisco Ballet 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 twentieth-century American Coppélia. San Francisco Ballet is one of the three largest ballet companies in the United States. Guided in its early years by American dance pioneers and brothers Lew, Willam and Harold Christensen, San Francisco Ballet currently presents more than one hundred performances annually, both locally and internationally. Under the direction of Helgi Tomasson for more than two decades, the Company has achieved an international reputation as one of the preeminent ballet companies in the world. In 2005, San Francisco won the prestigious Laurence Olivier Award, its first, in the category of Outstanding Achievement in Dance, for its 2004 London tour. In 2006, San Francisco Ballet was the first non-European company elected Company of the Year in Dance Europe magazine's annual readers' poll.

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[balletdad]

I have mixed emotion at the departure of Gonzalo from SFB. I am happy for him as working with Wheeldon's company will be a wonderful experience for him but I will certainly miss him when he leaves SF. He is a wonderful dancer. I am surprised to hear is is only a guest with Wheeldon's company as the story I had heard was that he was leaving to become a member of that company. But either way I wish Gonzalo great fortune in his career after San Francisco.

[sf_herminator]

for us, but best of luck Gonzalo and thank you for all your wonderful performances over the years: Fancy Free, Dances at a Gathering, Fifth Season, Sylvia, Don Quixote, Prism, Elemental Brubeck, Continuum, Eden/Eden, Dance House, Elite Syncopations, many more I can't think of right now....

I am going tonight and he is dancing with Molly Smolen in On Common Ground. I will post my thoughts on the performance later.