Jacey Gailliard made her lead debut at the San Francisco Ballet this past \u201cNutcracker\u201d season,\u00a0 performing the roles of the Snow Queen and Sugar Plum Fairy. As a 21-year-old member of the corps de ballet \u2014 the ballet company\u2019s ensemble who perform supporting roles \u2014 these iconic roles are an immense undertaking.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gailliard manages to do it all with eloquence, grace and the grit of a dancer who values her craft and knows its worth. The Daily Californian sat down with Gailliard to discuss her ballet career, her \u201cNutcracker\u201d debut and what comes next. Gailliard, originally from Philadelphia, has trained with the San Francisco Ballet School since 2019, becoming an apprentice in 2023 and a corps member in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When discussing the transition from student to professional and taking on larger roles, Gailliard\u00a0 says,\u201c(I had to) learn how to reflect 100% of myself genuinely (on stage). I\u2019m still learning how to navigate that (as I get) more time featured on stage. It definitely gave me a different perspective about how I want to reflect my artistry onto the stage compared to corps work.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked about the idea of reflecting personal artistry in a dance form often hailed as traditional, Gailliard said, \u201cWe\u2019re progressing in the outside world, and I just want to reflect that in my work as well. It\u2019s not just art, it\u2019s also our job. I\u2019ve gotten really lucky at being able to wear my brown tights and my brown shoes. That\u2019s a direct reflection of myself as a brown dancer.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a dancer of color in a historically white space, Gaillaird is working towards a more inclusive space within the industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had some struggles navigating myself as a Black woman in the (ballet) space. It is an uphill battle for me to get the same recognition and I feel that I have to work twice as hard to get half as much,\u201d Gaillaird said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBut (San Francisco Ballet) has been really receptive to letting them know how we can grow and make the company a more acceptable place, not just for me, but for all minorities and all sexualities,\u201d she continued.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Authenticity is a key part of Gailliard\u2019s understanding of her own artistry and drives her interpretation and performance of both her pivotal \u201cNutcracker\u201d roles.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt that the most important thing for me in this role was to project generosity and be a \u2018host\u2019 of the \u201cNutcracker\u201d for everyone watching. I was not as worried about the technical and dancing aspect as I was about projecting my artistry towards the audience. It was just really important for me to showcase(myself) as the Sugar Plum fairy, because that really is the only difference between me and the next (performer).\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gailliard\u2019s artistry isn\u2019t just rooted in her own identity \u2014 it reflects her relationship with her dance company and the community in San Francisco.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe community here is small enough where it can really support our art form, compared to the East, where there\u2019s more large companies in a smaller amount of space. Yes, we got to go on tour, but I don\u2019t feel a sort of camaraderie from the audience the same way that I do here.\u201d<\/p>\n
This season on the War Memorial Opera House stage, Galliard will feature in a production of \u201cBalanchine,\u201d She touts this season as a \u201cnew wave of dance.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re bringing in new, more modern choreographers, modern music, modern costumes and I feel that it\u2019s a great reflection of society, young people and artistic people in general. If you don\u2019t come to the ballet, you\u2019re really missing a part of the culture.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gailliard is poised to usher in this \u201cnew wave\u201d of ballet as artistically and authentically herself.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis season is athletic and musical. I\u2019m excited to showcase that part of myself to our audience.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jacey Gailliard made her lead debut at the San Francisco Ballet this past \u201cNutcracker\u201d season,\u00a0 performing the roles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[72401,30734,184,72400,30735,101,26971,103,102,104,106,105,72402],"class_list":["post-144787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-balanchine","tag-ballet","tag-bay-area","tag-jacey-gailliard","tag-nutcracker","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-ballet","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-sugar-plum-fairy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}