San Francisco Ballet Building both classical and contemporary ballet. Along with American Ballet Theatre and the New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet has been described as part of the "triumvirate of great classical companies defining the American style on the world stage today." With its origins in turn-of-the-century traveling companies, the San Francisco ballet routinely rented practice studios. In the late 1970s, the company was housed in a renovated parking garage on 18th Avenue, San Francisco, in a downstairs studio with ceilings so low that the dancers could not practice lifts for fear of hitting the beams. On the east coast, ballet companies
Ballet San Jose 2006 shortened its name to simply Ballet San Jose. In 2003 the company gained benefactor and current chairman of the board John Fry, co-founder of Fry's Electronics.with a 1 million dollar contribution. Fry helped the company survive the dot-com crash and continued to support the company until he closed it in 2016. Over the years Fry became personally involved and Ballet San Jose faced increasing Fry's support, prompting Karen Loewenstern, founding board chair of Cleveland San Jose Ballet to say "...he bought himself a ballet company." By 2007, still lead by founding artistic director, Dennis Nahat, there was a resident