San Francisco Ballet. Photo: Brunelleschi9, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:San_Francisco_Ballet_02.tif)
San Francisco Ballet. Photo: Brunelleschi9, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:San_Francisco_Ballet_02.tif)
Yuanyuan
dance instructor ballet dancer artistic director
Yuan Yuan Tan was born in Shanghai on February 14, 1976. Her father initially hoped she would become a medical doctor, while her mother supported her interest in dance. Tan has described her selection for professional ballet training as the result of a coin toss after her family debated whether she should enter the Shanghai Dance School.
Tan entered the Shanghai Dance School in childhood and studied there from 1985 to 1991. The school provided professional training in classical dance within China's state-supported system of arts education, preparing young dancers for theatrical careers.
She subsequently continued her training at the John Cranko School in Stuttgart, Germany. The school is associated with the Stuttgart Ballet tradition and with the international development of technically rigorous classical and contemporary ballet. Her training in Shanghai and Stuttgart placed her within both Chinese and European professional ballet traditions.
Tan began her professional association with the San Francisco Ballet in 1995 as a soloist after artistic director Helgi Tomasson saw her perform at the 1992 International Ballet Competition in Paris and invited her to appear with the company. She was promoted to principal dancer in 1997, becoming the youngest principal dancer in the company's history at that time and its first Chinese principal dancer. San Francisco Ballet, founded in 1933, is one of the oldest professional ballet companies in the United States and became the central institution of Tan's performing career.
Her San Francisco Ballet repertory included leading roles in Giselle, Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, The Nutcracker, Don Quixote, Sylvia, Othello, The Little Mermaid, RAkU, and other classical, neoclassical, and contemporary works. She created roles in Helgi Tomasson's The Fifth Season, Chi-Lin, Silver Ladders, and 7 for Eight; Yuri Possokhov's Magrittomania, Damned, and Study in Motion; Christopher Wheeldon's Continuum and Quaternary; Stanton Welch's Tu Tu; and works by other choreographers. Her repertory also included ballets by Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, Jiří Kylián, Jerome Robbins, John Neumeier, and others.
From 2002, Tan served as artistic director and co-choreographer of Tan Yuan Yuan and Her Friends, a performance project presented in China. The project contributed to exchanges between Chinese dance audiences and international artists and was connected with San Francisco Ballet tours to China in 2009 and 2015. In 2016, she established the Tan Yuan Yuan International Ballet Art Studio in partnership with the Shanghai Theatre Academy, supporting ballet education, artistic exchange, creation, and performance.
Tan was appointed artistic director of the dance drama White Snake, produced by the Shanghai Grand Theatre Creative Center and first presented in 2022. She also performed in the production. In November 2023, she became artistic director of the Suzhou Ballet Theatre, a company founded in 2007 that develops classical and contemporary ballet works with Chinese cultural themes. Tan gave her final San Francisco Ballet performance on February 14, 2024, and subsequently continued working as an international guest ballet artist, teacher, lecturer, and artistic director.
Tan won the silver medal in the junior female division of the 2nd International Ballet Competition in Helsinki in 1991.
She won the gold medal in the 5th International Ballet Competition in Paris in 1992, an early international distinction that helped lead to her association with the San Francisco Ballet.
She won a gold medal and the Nijinsky Award at the 1st Japan International Ballet and Modern Dance Competition in 1993.
Tan created roles in major works by Helgi Tomasson, Yuri Possokhov, Christopher Wheeldon, Stanton Welch, Mark Morris, Edwaard Liang, and other choreographers, contributing to the contemporary repertory of the San Francisco Ballet.
She developed international ballet education and exchange projects through Tan Yuan Yuan and Her Friends and the Tan Yuan Yuan International Ballet Art Studio.
Tan has spoken of ballet as a discipline requiring control of the mind as well as the body. Her public work has emphasized perseverance, artistic exchange, and the presentation of Chinese stories and cultural perspectives through an international ballet vocabulary.
Quotations: To have control over your mind gives you true power.
Tan has described herself as initially reluctant to leave China and as having faced homesickness and language difficulties after moving to the United States. In interviews, she has emphasized mental control, perseverance, and the discipline required by ballet training.
Quotes from others about the person
At the 1992 International Ballet Competition in Paris, Tan received strong recognition from the jury, including praise associated with the Russian ballet tradition for her youth and classical performance style.
Tan has described her mother as an important source of support for her decision to pursue ballet, while her father initially preferred that she prepare for a medical career. Her professional life connected Shanghai, Stuttgart, and San Francisco, and she later used these international ties in educational and artistic exchange projects between China and the United States.
