San Francisco Ballet of Outstanding Achievement in Dance, for its 2004 fall season at Sadler's Wells Theatre. Of the engagement, London's "The Sunday Times" proclaimed, "Helgi Tomasson's outstanding artistic direction ... has transformed a regional American troupe into one of the world's top ballet companies." In 2006, in a readers' poll conducted by "Dance Europe" magazine, San Francisco Ballet was the first non-European company to be voted "Company of the Year". In 2008, San Francisco Ballet received the Jerome Robbins Award for excellence in dance. In 2012, Helgi Tomasson was named recipient of the Dance/USA Honor, acknowledging individuals' contributions to dance in America
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