Sarah Van Patten is a principal dancer

Principal dancer

A principal dancer is a dancer at the highest rank within a professional dance company, particularly a ballet company....

 with the San Francisco Ballet

San Francisco Ballet

The San Francisco Ballet is a ballet company, founded in 1933 as the San Francisco Opera Ballet. The company is currently based in the War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco, under the direction of Helgi Tomasson. SFB is the first professional ballet company in the United States...

. She trained at Boston Ballet

Boston Ballet

Boston Ballet, founded in 1963 by E. Virginia Williams, was the first professional repertory ballet company in New England. Boston Ballet’s national and international reputation developed under the leadership of Artistic Directors Violette Verdy , Bruce Marks , and Anna-Marie Holmes...

 and began performing at age 8 in their annual performance of The Nutcracker

The Nutcracker

The Nutcracker is a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". It was given its première at the Mariinsky Theatre in St...

. By age 10, Sarah was studying with Jacqueline Cronsberg and performing classical ballet repertoire with the Massachusetts Youth Ballet. Sarah attended school at Newton Country Day School of the Sacred Heart

Newton Country Day School

Newton Country Day School of the Sacred Heart is a private, all-girls Roman Catholic high school and middle school located on the Loren Towle Estate in Newton, Massachusetts, as part of the Sacred Heart Network of 21 schools in the United States and 44 countries abroad...

 and spent her summers studying with Jean-Pierre Bonnefeux, Violette Verdy

Violette Verdy

Violette Verdy is a French ballerina who has worked as a director of dance companies and in other related capacities since her retirement from performing in the late 1970s. Verdy began dance training as a small child and performed with Les Ballets des Champs-Elysées beginning in 1945...

, and Patricia McBride

Patricia McBride

Patricia McBride is a ballerina who spent nearly 30 years dancing with the New York City Ballet....

 at the Chautauqua Institution

Chautauqua Institution

The Chautauqua Institution is a non-profit adult education center and summer resort located on 750 acres in Chautauqua, New York, 17 miles northwest of Jamestown in the western part of New York State...

.

In 2000 at age 15, she joined the Royal Danish Ballet

Royal Danish Ballet

The Royal Danish Ballet is one of the oldest ballet companies in the world. Based in Copenhagen, Denmark, it originates from 1748, when the Royal Danish Theatre was founded, and was finally organized in 1771 in response to the great popularity of French and Italian styles of dance...

 as an apprentice, where John Neumeier

John Neumeier

John Neumeier is a well-known American ballet dancer, choreographer, and director. He has been the director and chief choreographer of the Hamburg Ballet since 1973. 5 years later he founded the Hamburg Ballet School, which also includes a boarding school...

 cast her as Juliet in his Romeo & Juliet. Soon after, she was promoted to the rank of corps dancer, one of the youngest corps dancer ever invited to the Royal Danish Ballet in its 200-year history. During her corps year, she re-created her role in Romeo & Juliet and originated a soloist role in Peter Martins

Peter Martins

Peter Martins is a Danish ballet dancer and choreographer. Martins was named man of the year by Danish American Society, 1980...

’ Hallelujah Junction

Hallelujah Junction (ballet)

Hallelujah Junction is the eighth ballet made by New York City Ballet balletmaster in chief Peter Martins to the — in this case eponymous — music of John Adams; the duo pianists appear in silhouette above the dancers throughout in Mark Stanley's lighting...

. Sarah joined San Francisco Ballet as a soloist dancer in 2002 and was promoted to the rank of principal dancer in 2007.

Sarah’s featured roles while at San Francisco Ballet include Helgi Tomasson's Nutcracker (Sugarplum Fairy, Tea), Nanna’s Lied, Romeo & Juliet, Swan Lake, and The Sleeping Beauty; George Balanchine

George Balanchine

George Balanchine , born Giorgi Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to a Georgian father and a Russian mother, was one of the 20th century's most famous choreographers, a developer of ballet in the United States, co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet...

's The Four Temperaments

The Four Temperaments (ballet)

The Four Temperaments is a ballet made by New York City Ballet co-founder and balletmaster George Balanchine to music he commissioned from Paul Hindemith for the opening program of Ballet Society, immediate forerunner of City Ballet...

, Apollo

Apollo (ballet)

Apollo is a ballet in two tableaux composed between 1927 and 1928 by Igor Stravinsky. It was choreographed by balletmaster George Balanchine in 1928, the composer contributing the libretto...

, Divertimento No. 15 and Serenade

Serenade (ballet)

Serenade is a ballet by George Balanchine, subsequently co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet, to Tschaikovsky's 1880 Serenade for Strings in C, Op. 48...

; Jerome Robbins

Jerome Robbins

Jerome Robbins was an American theater producer, director, and choreographer known primarily for Broadway Theater and Ballet/Dance, but who also occasionally directed films and directed/produced for television. His work has included everything from classical ballet to contemporary musical theater...

' Rodeo, Dybbuk

Dybbuk (ballet)

Dybbuk is a ballet made by New York City Ballet balletmaster Jerome Robbins to Leonard Bernstein's eponymous music and taking S. Ansky's play The Dybbuk as a source...

and Afternoon of a Faun

Afternoon of a Faun (ballet)

The ballet L'après-midi d'un faune was choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky for the Ballets Russes, and first performed in the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris on May 29, 1912. Nijinsky danced the main part himself....

; Mark Morris

Mark Morris

Mark William Morris is an American dancer, choreographer and director whose work is acclaimed for its craftsmanship, ingenuity, humor, and at times eclectic musical accompaniments...

' Sylvia

Sylvia (ballet)

Sylvia, originally Sylvia, ou La nymphe de Diane, is a full-length ballet in two or three acts, first choreographed by Louis Mérante to music by Léo Delibes in 1876. Sylvia is a typical classical ballet in many respects, yet it has many interesting features which make it unique...

and Christopher Wheeldon

Christopher Wheeldon

Christopher Wheeldon is an international choreographer of contemporary ballet. Born in Somerset, England, to an engineer and a physical therapist, Wheeldon began training to be a ballet dancer at the age of 8. He attended the Royal Ballet School between the ages of 11 and 18...

's Carousel (a Dance).

External links

• http://www.sarahvanpatten.com