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
San Francisco Ballet the space of a single week in the UNited We Dance Festival. The 49-member orchestra accompanies SF Ballet throughout its winter and spring repertory seasons. It also performs apart from the Company; it debuted solely as an orchestra in 1979 at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco's War Memorial Veterans Building, playing a program that included works by Haydn, Ives, and Vivaldi. The SFBO is composed of 49 members and headed by Martin West, music director and conductor. As of October 2013, the musicians and staff included: The orchestra was led by Denis de Coteau from 1975 until 1998, when