San Francisco in the 1970s a disaster area. In the same year, with bankruptcy imminent for the San Francisco Ballet, a grassroots effort brought national attention to the association. Prior to the discovery of the first AIDS case in 1981, Dr. Selma Dritz, the city's medical epidemiologist, became alarmed at the increase in sexually transmitted diseases among the city's gay men, opining that epidemics had been triggered after 1974 by "political and social changes in the city". "The Grateful Dead Movie" was filmed in 1974 in San Francisco during the Grateful Dead's October 1974 five performances at the Winterland Ballroom. After the 1974 kidnapping of
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