Around Christmas, Jenny de la Vega wrote an entry for a tribute book for her former choreographer at Sacramento Ballet, Ron Cunningham.
By this point, Cunningham had been sick with stage 4 pancreatic cancer for more than a year. Numerous dancers who’d known Cunningham over the three decades he led Sacramento Ballet as co-artistic director with wife Carinne Binda wrote entries for the roughly 90-page book.
Cunningham, who according to family died Saturday at 86, left Sacramento Ballet along with Binda in 2018 but remains a towering figure in Sacramento’s artistic community. He helped Sacramento Ballet establish itself as a professional company, staged many original works and aided the careers of many talented dancers, some of whom went on to work as choreographers.
But for people like de la Vega, who danced with Sacramento Ballet as a child and later professionally, Cunningham wasn’t just a creative visionary. She was one of many people who spent time off-clock with Cunningham and Binda at their Land Park home, where they welcomed their dancers for dinners and conversations that could stretch late into the evening about dance and other topics.
Seeing the finished book brought de la Vega, now in her mid-40s, back in contact with dancers she hadn’t spoken with in years.
“I think it just reminded all of us what a family Ron created,” de la Vega said.
Sacramento Ballet Artistic Director Ron Cunningham stands in front of dancers Jack Hansen and Sarah Hinman at the ballet’s studios in 2003. OWEN BREWER Sacramento Bee file How Cunningham got started in dance
Born Sept. 15, 1939, Cunningham grew up working class in Chicago and came to dance unusually late, as he explained in an early draft of a memoir that has not yet been published.
Cunningham began work on his memoir in recent years, before he took ill, at the request of his daughter Alexandra. It was a one-of-a-kind story, starting with his entrance into professional dance.
As Cunningham wrote, it was New Year’s Eve 1961. He’d been attending Roosevelt University and working nights as a department store security guard. Having never been to a ballet but wanting to do something cultural, he got a ticket to the Chicago Lyric Opera Ballet. He wound up seeing a performance with legendary dancer Rudolf Nureyev, who’d recently defected from the Soviet Union.
“He changed my life — I became a dancer!” Cunningham wrote.
Cunningham danced first for Robert Lunnon and Doreen Tempest, who’d been principal dancers for Royal Ballet, according to a professional biography he provided for Dayton Ballet, where he did guest choreography work in recent years.
He danced with various other companies before joining Boston Ballet in 1972. Cunningham stayed at the company for 13 years, running Boston Ballet’s second company beginning in 1975. He also met Binda at Boston Ballet, who had danced for the company and later became a well-regarded dance mistress, who helped train other dancers. Cunningham and Binda married in 1982.
Sacramento Ballet artistic directors Carinne Binda and Ron Cunningham in 2005. RANDY PENCH Sacramento Bee file
During their time at Boston Ballet, Cunningham and Binda also worked with Nureyev, who became a prominent traveling dancer and worked with the company. Nureyev loved working with Binda, as Cunningham wrote in his memoir. Cunningham also got a firsthand look at Nureyev’s attention to detail and idiosyncrasies, as he explained to the New York Times for a January 1983 story.
“’He will come offstage and ask, ‘Why are the fishermen and matadors standing together whispering? They’re supposed to be adversaries!’ or ‘Why are the girls jumping on the wrong beat?’” Cunningham said. “ He can be pretty imperious, and he expects you to do it right. I’m scared of him, I can tell you that!”
Some of Nureyev’s quirks might have rubbed off on Cunningham. Danielle Martinelli, who danced for the company as an apprentice and later did choreography for it, remembered advice Cunningham would give.
“He was so funny,” said Martinelli, who helped spearhead production of the tribute book. “‘Look for birds, dancers, not worms.’ He always had something funny like that.”
As a child, de la Vega danced as Clara in Cunningham’s version of “The Nutcracker.” She remembered her audition, where Cunningham told her to run across the stage with her ears flapping in the wind as though she were a golden retriever.
“He brought out so much of the joy,” de la Vega said.
Cunningham’s time in Sacramento
Cunningham became artistic director of Sacramento Ballet in 1988, at a time the company was transitioning into a fully professional operation. He had met company co-founder Barbara Crockett at a dance-related conference in Los Angeles three years earlier, as the Sacramento Union noted at the time of Cunningham’s hiring.
“I essentially have no radical ideas about classical ballet,” Cunningham told the newspaper. “I’m a traditionalist, although a work has to make sense to a 20th century audience.”
This became a hallmark of works Cunningham choreographed for Sacramento Ballet, blending classical skill with modern dance and dramatic, almost cinematic flair. Aside from his version of “The Nutcracker,” other well-known works he choreographed included “Carmina Burana,” “Bolero” and “The Great Gatsby,” among many others.
Amanda Peet, top, and other dancers in a scene from “Carmina Burana” at the Sacramento Ballet rehearsal studio in 2010. RANDALL BENTON Sacramento Bee file
There were classical works as well, with Cunningham and Binda working with the trust of the celebrated George Balanchine to stage works like “The Four Temperaments.”
Cunningham also did work that relatively few people saw but was nonetheless memorable and helped illustrate his approach to dance and life.
In spring 1990, Cunningham was joined from the East Coast by Binda and their son Christopher, then 6 and daughter Alexandra, who was about 3 and later became a principal dancer for the company. Months after the move, Cunningham and Binda staged a production of “The Nutcracker” performed by Christopher’s second-grade class at Crocker/Riverside Elementary School.
It marked one of many times Cunningham and Binda did outreach work at local schools, part of Cunningham’s core belief of making dance accessible to anyone, which it had been for him. This also might have helped inspire him to create roles for countless local children in “The Nutcracker.”
Among these children was future celebrated filmmaker Greta Gerwig, a Sacramento native.
In time, Cunningham and Binda helped bring the company to greater prosperity, helping advocate for the creation of its practice space at the CLARA. Having traveled to China with Boston Ballet on a historic trip in about 1980, they also took Sacramento Ballet on a trip to the country in 2007.
Through it all, Cunningham and Binda were a partnership. Cunningham provided creative vision and choreography, and Binda proved to be skilled at training dancers. And it came through on evenings at their home where people like Martinelli could be found.
Carinne Binda and Ron Cunningham, artistic directors of the Sacramento Ballet, watch rehearsal in October 1997. LEILANI HU Sacramento Bee file
“Both he and Carinne are deeply curious people,” Martinelli said. “When you’re in the studio with them, of course, it’s focused on dance. It’s focused on that art form and whatever ballets you were bringing to life, that was the focus. And then outside of the studio, you’d go to those evenings, and you’re talking about travel all over the world.”
Martinelli added, “I mean, they both are very curious, well-traveled people who love understanding what makes people tick. ”
Sacramento Ballet Artistic Director Ron Cunningham, center, listens during the dress rehearsal at the B Street Theater of his final Sacramento Ballet production on June 14, 2018. JOSÉ LUIS VILLEGAS Sacramento Bee file
Cunningham died at his home in the Washington, D.C. area, where he moved after becoming ill so his family could care for him. His family had gradually moved over the years to that area, where Binda’s mom and stepfather lived. Cunningham was surrounded at the time of his death by his wife and children.
Cunningham is survived by Binda, as well as his son Christopher Cunningham, who is a government analyst, and his daughter Alexandra Cunningham, a retired ballet dancer who works in the arts. He also is survived by a sister Frieda Nelson, who lives in the Chicago area, and her family.
He was preceded in death by his mother Ethel Cunningham, to whom he dedicated his 2007 ballet “The Donner Party” not long after her passing.
Family say they would like to have a memorial in Sacramento at some point in the future, though nothing is planned at this time.
Graham Womack grew up in Land Park, has been friends with Chris Cunningham since first grade and performed as a child in Cunningham’s versions of “The Nutcracker” for Sacramento Ballet and Crocker/Riverside Elementary School.
This story was originally published March 7, 2026 at 12:39 PM.
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Graham Womack is a general assignment reporter for The Sacramento Bee. Prior to joining The Bee full-time in September 2025, he freelanced for the publication for several years. His work has won several California Journalism Awards and spurred state legislation.