Celebrating Dance Magazine Award Honoree Frances Chung
This week we’re sharing tributes to all of the 2025 Dance Magazine Award honorees. For tickets to the awards ceremony on December 8, visit store.dancemedia.com.
Frances Chung has been a rock-steady presence at San Francisco Ballet for 24 years, a grounded artist with powerful technique and an expansive movement quality. Her longevity has allowed her to continue adding layers to her artistry and to lean into emotion. A mother of two, she’s also refreshingly down-to-earth offstage—she takes her career seriously but doesn’t let it swallow her whole. “My life outside of work is just as fulfilling,” she says.
Chung grew up in Vancouver, Canada, training at Goh Ballet Academy. There she was exposed to a variety of methods, including the Vaganova, French, and English schools. She first became aware of SFB because one of her instructors had also trained Yuan Yuan Tan, one of the company’s biggest stars. “YY would come to our studios to take class with her old teacher,” says Chung. “Obviously I looked up to her.”
At 17, Chung was accepted directly into SFB’s corps de ballet, skipping an apprenticeship. She was promoted to soloist four years later, and principal four years after that, in 2009. Through the years she’s performed works by a diverse array of choreographers, including George Balanchine, William Forsythe, Mark Morris, Christopher Wheeldon, Yuri Possokhov, Liam Scarlett, Helgi Tomasson, and Alexei Ratmansky. “I think I stayed because SFB has always fed my creativity, my desire to explore new works,” says Chung. “It offered me everything I could possibly want as an artist.”
At 43, she continues to evolve. “I feel like I’m still growing and experiencing new things,” she says. “Even technically—I still love coming to class every day and discovering new and better ways of approaching it.” Her children are now 6 and 2 1/2, and she says motherhood has deepened her artistry: “It’s given me a lot of freedom and perspective—and a lot less time to be self-absorbed, which has been such a gift.”
Her environment helps too. “I’m a West Coast girl. It’s exactly what it’s known for—a little bit more chill,” she says. “Ballet can take over your life. There are a lot of places here to get out, take a hike, put your feet in the sand.”
