San Francisco Ballet today revealed new details on its annual partnership with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
The SF Ballet and FAMSF partnership includes the annual commission of a large-scale curtain drop for the War Memorial Opera House stage. For the 24/25 season, the two San Francisco organizations have invited Bay Area artist Ranu Mukherjee to create the curtain drop for SF Ballet’s Cool Britannia program debuting in February 2025.
Throughout 2025, SF Ballet will also partner with FAMSF on a series of talks and performances in celebration of the Legion of Honor’s 100th anniversary.
The cross-disciplinary partnership between SF Ballet, a trailblazing commissioner, collaborator, and presenter in dance, and FAMSF, an institution that holds an outstanding collection of set designs for theater and dance and stewards a renowned Contemporary Art program, forges new collaborations across San Francisco’s cultural sector and furthers the Ballet’s mission of infusing fresh perspectives into ballet while uplifting local creativity.
SF Ballet’s partnership with FAMSF is spearheaded by SF Ballet Artistic Director Tamara Rojo; Claudia Schmuckli, Chief Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, who steers major acquisitions and presentations of art by Bay Area artists as part of the institution’s Contemporary Art program; Furio Rinaldi, Curator in Charge, Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts; and Maria Egoavil, Public Programs Manager at FAMSF. Conceived in 2023, the collaboration began when Rojo participated in “Botticelli to Balanchine: A Conversation on the Renaissance of Dance,” a public talk at FAMSF’s Legion of Honor.
The partnership further developed in 2024 when Schmuckli recommended Oakland artist Maria A. Guzmán Capron for the inaugural curtain commission for SF Ballet’s Dos Mujeres program, and FAMSF acquired Guzmán Capron’s preparatory maquette.
Further details will be announced at sfballet.org and famsf.org/whats-on.