Helimets came to Sacramento following a celebrated career in dance, most notably for the San Francisco Ballet where he spent nearly 20 years as a principal dancer. He joins a company that has lacked long-term artistic leadership since the 2018 departure of married co-artistic directors Ron Cunningham and Carinne Binda, who ran the company for roughly 30 years and helped professionalize it.<\/p>\n
Cunningham, who died in March at 86,<\/a> and Binda were succeeded by their former dancer Amy Seiwert, who led the company for two seasons. She was laid off due to the COVID-19 pandemic and now leads Smuin Contemporary Ballet in San Francisco. Seiwert\u2019s successor in Sacramento, Anthony Krutzkamp, lasted roughly four years in a dual role as executive director before departing last year for Louisville Ballet.<\/p>\n If Helimets becomes the long-term artistic leader the ballet has lacked for several years, it will be with a respect for classical ballet and his belief that knowing it well can help lead to innovative technique.<\/p>\n By standards of professional dance, Helimets had a spectacularly long career, close to 30 years on-stage.<\/p>\n Born in Estonia when it was part of the Soviet Union, Helimets began dancing professionally with the Estonian National Ballet in 1996. After meeting his wife, fellow dancer and American-born Molly Smolen in Estonia, Helimets started dancing for the Birmingham Royal Ballet in England in 1999. He arrived at San Francisco Ballet in 2005 where he would dance until his retirement in 2023.<\/p>\n Helimets spent most of his career as a principal dancer and gained a reputation as an exquisite dance partner.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve heard other dancers at San Francisco Ballet say that he is just their favorite partner,\u201d said Lisa Le Lievre, a Sausalito-based filmmaker. She directed \u201cCloser Than Yesterday,\u201d<\/a> a 2024 documentary that centered around Helimets.<\/p>\n Sacramento Ballet dancer James Griffen trained at San Francisco Ballet School and witnessed Helimets\u2019 partnering abilities.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can really tell that he cares for the partner and he cares for the steps and he wants the partner to be as relaxed and comfortable as possible,\u201d Griffen said.<\/p>\n Helimets\u2019 reputation also preceded him among other Sacramento Ballet dancers. Company member Sarah Joan Smith grew up in South Carolina but had known who Helimets was since she was a child. She said Helimets was \u201ca lot of people\u2019s favorite candidate\u201d to become the new artistic director.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we were all really excited when it was a pretty unanimous decision to hire him on to lead the company,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI think people are really excited about his positivity and his devotion to ballet and his devotion to keeping the purism of classical ballet alive.\u201d<\/p>\n Helimets favors the Vaganova teaching method. It is a detail-oriented, Russian-style dance instruction that teachers for the great George Balanchine used. During the hiring process for his job, Helimets gave a Vaganova-inspired class in February to Sacramento Ballet dancers, including Isabella Velasquez.<\/p>\n \u201cHe had a very nice presence and was just very respectful, which I appreciated,\u201d Velasquez said. \u201cAnd his class was from a ballet standpoint, very technically challenging, but really good. I feel like we would all improve a lot under him.\u201d<\/p>\n A well-known name joining the Sacramento Ballet isn\u2019t unprecedented for the company. Cunningham and Binda worked with the legendary Rudolf Nureyev at the Boston Ballet and Cunningham did freelance choreography for different companies before coming to Sacramento. Seiwert was a rising name as a choreographer when she was hired.<\/p>\n Unlike Cunningham, Helimets doesn\u2019t intend to appear in productions in Sacramento. Instead, he has reached the point of his career where he can pass on his experience to others.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you work with the dancers, it becomes a sharing of your legacy,\u201d Helimets said. \u201cYou share everything that you have learned, everything that has helped you to be successful.\u201d<\/p>\n How Helimets approaches dance<\/p>\n Helimets has a gentle intensity and a commitment to dance that come through in a variety of ways. There are his thoughts, for one, on contemporary dance.<\/p>\n \u201cMy frustration with contemporary dance is that I love contemporary dance and I love watching contemporary dancers do contemporary dance,\u201d Helimets said. \u201cI don\u2019t love watching ballet dancers do contemporary dance because for me, that is such a waste of talent. Because they are not utilizing the skills that they\u2019re training every day.\u201d<\/p>\n Helimets values classical training and sees it as foundational.<\/p>\n \u201cI can dance all forms of dance,\u201d Helimets said. \u201cBut the classical product is why I\u2019m able to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n He added, \u201cYou can\u2019t train contemporary and then expect to dance classical. There is no way. That crossover never happens.\u201d<\/p>\n In Cunningham\u2019s time choreographing works for Sacramento Ballet, the company sometimes put on works that were an enjoyable mix of dance styles, such as his original ballet for \u201cCarmina Burana.\u201d By contrast, Helimets said he plans to put on seasons \u201c75% honoring ballet technique and then the 25% will be for contemporary or new works.\u201d<\/p>\n Helimets said he might work with composers to score original music for works, something he\u2019s done before. Creativity in ballet starts for him with music. Although he doesn\u2019t choreograph much himself, he enjoys working with composers.<\/p>\n \u201cI speak the vision of what form of music I would love and they usually create exactly for my vision,\u201d Helimets said. \u201cIt\u2019s fantastic. I love working that way.\u201d<\/p>\n Helimets might shy away from works with theatrical appeal, which were a regular and popular part of Cunningham\u2019s era, from \u201cThe Great Gatsby\u201d to \u201cPeter Pan.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI love theatrical stuff,\u201d Helimets said. \u201cThe biggest problem right now, when I see a lot of theatrical stuff, it looks a little bit like a Broadway dance. So there\u2019s very little dancing for dancers. And yes, there\u2019s a lot of pulling faces and funny jokes and shiny costumes, but not much technique. So I can\u2019t justify bringing something like this in when I\u2019m trying to uplift the company standard.\u201d<\/p>\n The potential shifting of styles is no problem for Velasquez, who has danced under Cunningham and Binda and their successors Seiwert and Krutzkamp in her time in Sacramento.<\/p>\n \u201cWith every single artistic director that\u2019s come in, the style of the company has shifted a little bit and that\u2019s kind of what tends to happen, with their vision,\u201d Velasquez said. \u201cI think in general, just a new vision will be really nice for the company and like a more solid direction.\u201d<\/p>\n Helimets comes with a deep love for dance\u2019s history. Sacramento Ballet has long worked with the George Balanchine Trust to stage works by the legendary choreographer and in October will again perform his 1946 ballet \u201cThe Four Temperaments,\u201d a favorite for dancers.<\/p>\n Helimets intends to keep staging Balanchine\u2019s work. He also wants to keep staging the work of Jerome Robbins and said he \u201cwould love to get de Mille into the mix.\u201d Beyond this, he\u2019d like to restage works from choreographers such as Ji\u0159\u00ed Kyli\u00e1n, Maurice B\u00e9jart, John Cranko, Frederick Ashton and Birgit Cullberg.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m trying to restore that kind of idea of staying true to the history, but also curiosity of where it\u2019s gonna go,\u201d Helimets said.<\/p>\n Those close to Helimets have noticed his approach.<\/p>\n \u201cHe takes the history of classical ballet and all of its roots and founding and brings it into kind of the modern world that we live in,\u201d Le Lievre said.<\/p>\n What to expect<\/p>\n Helimets has found a place to live in Natomas and said he enjoys the short commute. His wife and his daughter, Chloe Helimets were two days from returning to France, where the younger Helimets, a promising dancer with a sizable Instagram following<\/a>, trains at Paris Opera Ballet School.<\/p>\n It isn\u2019t easy for Helimets to be away from his family, he said. But he sees potential in Sacramento.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like a really healthy seed that you know is going to sprout any moment,\u201d Helimets said.<\/p>\n He already has had work to attend to in the early going. The second company started Aug. 17, the same day that Helimets began his job.<\/p>\n Helimets brought in his best friend Vitor Luiz, who he had known in both Birmingham and San Francisco, to begin serving in recent weeks as interim director of the second company. (The previous director of that unit, Rhodes Elliott departed, along with his wife, former rehearsal director Elise Elliott, for roles with Cincinnati Ballet.)<\/p>\n Luiz is on sabbatical from his job as a professor of dance at University of California, Irvine and will work with Sacramento Ballet until December. He said he was confident about what his friend would be able to achieve in Sacramento.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t say enough that this is the best choice that Sacramento Ballet could have had,\u201d Luiz said.<\/p>\n Helimets has also taken early steps with Le Lievre about her making a documentary about his first season in Sacramento. The ballet\u2019s board is working to find a venue to screen the previous documentary as a way to introduce Helimets locally.<\/p>\n The first company returns Sept. 14 and Helimets will work with dancers he didn\u2019t audition or hire. Sacramento Ballet Executive Director Kiera Anderson, who was hired in January<\/a>, explained that contracts for the season go out months in advance.<\/p>\n Programming is also set for the ballet\u2019s 2026-27 season<\/a>, which is titled \u201cLegacy in Motion\u201d as a nod to the ballet\u2019s past and present. But that hasn\u2019t stopped Helimets from thinking about future programming, Anderson noted.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been daydreaming about what the possibilities are for upcoming seasons for the last several months,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cBecause of his connections and his network and also just his artistic vision, really the sky is the limit for what we could do. I think it\u2019s just a really exciting time for Sacramento Ballet in terms of building on our legacy and growing as a company.\u201d<\/p>\n Helimets said he had a long-term view on what it would take to be successful.<\/p>\n \u201cI have my vision for this company and that is that this company\u2026 in five years is going to be really competitive and a high performing in classical medium,\u201d Helimets said.<\/p>\n He wasn\u2019t worried about quickly winning over his dancers.<\/p>\n \u201cIn this process of the dancers getting to know me, the ones who don\u2019t feel like it\u2019s a right fit are going to just slowly move away because they don\u2019t feel like it\u2019s going to fit with what they want to do,\u201d Helimets said. \u201cThat\u2019s just natural.\u201d<\/p>\n Those who stay will get to work with an artistic director with a focus.<\/p>\n \u201cI am forever going to try to find a way to bring ballet technique into the 21st century,\u201d Helimets said. \u201cI will die trying until my final breath, until I get there.\u201d<\/p>\n Follow More of Our Reporting on In the Spotlight<\/p>\n![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/SAC_6964_TiitHeliments_HA_260902.JPG\" "\\"SAC_6964_TiitHeliments_HA_260902.JPG\\"")
New Sacramento Ballet Artistic Director Tiit Helimets teaches a class at Clara Studios in Sacramento on Wednesday. HECTOR AMEZCUA hamezcua@sacbee.com Helimets\u2019 career path<\/p>\n![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/SAC_6966_TiitHeliments_HA_260902.JPG\" "\\"SAC_6966_TiitHeliments_HA_260902.JPG\\"")
New Sacramento Ballet Artistic Director Tiit Helimets at Clara Studios on Wednesday. HECTOR AMEZCUA hamezcua@sacbee.com <\/p>\n![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/SAC_6960_TiitHeliments_HA_260902.JPG\" "\\"SAC_6960_TiitHeliments_HA_260902.JPG\\"")
New Sacramento Ballet Artistic Director Tiit Helimets teaches a class at Clara Studios on Wednesday. HECTOR AMEZCUA hamezcua@sacbee.com <\/p>\n![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/SAC_6958_TiitHeliments_HA_260902.JPG\" "\\"SAC_6958_TiitHeliments_HA_260902.JPG\\"")
New Sacramento Ballet Artistic Director Tiit Helimets gives instructions during a class at Clara Studios on Wednesday. HECTOR AMEZCUA hamezcua@sacbee.com <\/p>\n![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/SAC_6959_TiitHeliments_HA_260902.JPG\" "\\"SAC_6959_TiitHeliments_HA_260902.JPG\\"")
New Sacramento Ballet Artistic Director Tiit Helimets gives instructions during a class at Clara Studios on Wednesday. HECTOR AMEZCUA hamezcua@sacbee.com <\/p>\n![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/SAC_6968_TiitHeliments_HA_260902.JPG\" "\\"SAC_6968_TiitHeliments_HA_260902.JPG\\"")
New Sacramento Ballet Artistic Director Tiit Helimets at Clara Studios on Wednesday. HECTOR AMEZCUA hamezcua@sacbee.com <\/p>\n![\"New](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/SAC_6965_TiitHeliments_HA_260902.JPG\" "\\"SAC_6965_TiitHeliments_HA_260902.JPG\\"")
New Sacramento Ballet Artistic Director Tiit Helimets is thanked after a dance class at Clara Studios on Wednesday. HECTOR AMEZCUA hamezcua@sacbee.com <\/p>\n
![\"Profile](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1788649575_593_SAC_4089_GrahamWomack_HA_250908.jpg\")