Smuin Ballet Smuin Ballet Smuin Contemporary Ballet, formerly known as Smuin Ballet, is a touring ballet company based in San Francisco, California. Smuin Ballet performs its season in multiple venues: the Dean Lesher Center in Walnut Creek, the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts in Mountain View, the Sunset Center in Carmel, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and at The Palace of Fine Arts Theater in San Francisco. Michael Smuin, a former dancer, choreographer and co-artistic director with the San Francisco Ballet and an award-winning choreographer, founded Smuin Contemporary Ballet in 1994. Then known as Smuin Ballet, the "American
Pirates of Penzance – The Ballet! which the company took it on an extended tour to the United States presented by Columbia Artists Management. Gray largely re-choreographed the work for Ballet San Jose for a 2004 revival and retitled "Pirates of Penzance – The Ballet!". In 2008, Orlando Ballet, under the direction of Bruce Marks, toured the ballet in Florida. It was again revived in November 2009 at Ballet San Jose. The "San Francisco Chronicle" reviewer wrote of the revival, "the show is a perpetual motion machine. ... Ebullient, athletic, bright as a picture book and blurrily overstuffed, Ballet San Jose's "Pirates of Penzance" is a