Sarah Van Patten
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Sarah Van Patten (Boston, 1984) is a principal dancer[1] with the San Francisco Ballet. She trained at Boston Ballet and began performing at age 8 in their annual performance of The Nutcracker. 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 and spent her summers studying with Jean-Pierre Bonnefeux, Violette Verdy, and Patricia McBride at The Chautauqua Institution.
In 2000 at age 15, she joined the Royal Danish Ballet as an apprentice[2], where John Neumeier 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 Martin’s Halleluiah Junction. 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, and Sleeping Beauty; George Balanchine's The Four Temperaments, Apollo, Divertimento No. 15,and Serenade; Jerome Robbins' Rodeo, Dybbuk and Afternoon of a Faun, Mark Morris' Sylvia, and Christopher Wheeldon's Carousel (a Dance).
References
- ^ Rachel Howard (march 24, 2007). "Footnotes: 24 March 2007". Retrieved 28-11-2007.
...she (van Patten) and Rachel Viselli have just been promoted to principal (dancer)
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|accessdate=and|date=(help); Unknown parameter|Publisher=ignored (|publisher=suggested) (help) - ^ Sophie Hayward (June 20, 2000). "Joy Street kid on center stage". the Beacon Hill Times.
she's planning to move to Copenhagen in August to pursue dance full time with the Royal Danish allet. (sic)
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In a review of Romeo & Juliet, Dance Critic Rachel Howard states, “Van Patten was not afraid to look immature, even goofy. Her giggles with her girlfriends were not demure twitters but silly chest-heaving laughs. When she first met Romeo in the ballroom and pulled her hand away from his, teasing, you could see how ill-prepared this sheltered jokester was for a love of such intensity. In the balcony scene, she made her sudden series of pique arabesque look slightly awkward, like the tottering steps of a newborn foal. In the marriage scene, when she restrained herself from clinging to Romeo and then rushed at him again, her inability to control herself was so childlike that she actually provoked a big laugh from the audience. Van Patten is a thoroughly naturalistic actress.” http://rachelhoward.com/archives/2005/05/van_pattens_jul.php
Renee Renouf, of Ballet.co magazine calls Sarah, “a special dramatic force.” http://www.ballet.co.uk/magazines/yr_07/apr07/rr_rev_sfb3_0307.htm
Alan Ulrich of The Voice of Dance observed in a review of Apollo that, “I have never seen the Calliope solo dispatched with the character details brought to it by Sarah Van Patten” http://www.voiceofdance.org/Insights/features.test.cfm?LinkID=31500000000000208
Interview with Sarah as one of San Francisco Ballet’s “Up and Coming Stars” Pointe Magazine, October / November 2006. pp. 38-44.
Reference to her Romeo & Juliet in Copenhagen (in Danish) http://www.old.kglteater.dk/dkt2002/omteatret/regnskab/2000/beretning/2/teater.html