Long and Winding Road

Sacramento Ballet 2026/27 Season Opener

October 23–25, 2026
The Sofia

Sacramento Ballet opens its 2026/27 season with Long and Winding Road, a mixed repertory program that does what a season opener should: it gives the audience a map. This is not one long story ballet. It's an evening of shorter works in conversation — Stanton Welch's neoclassical ballet set to baroque-inspired Beatles arrangements, a Balanchine work to be announced, and a legacy work honoring the late Ron Cunningham.

That combination suggests a company looking in three directions at once: toward popular music transformed into ballet, toward one of the major choreographic lineages of the twentieth century, and toward Sacramento Ballet's own local history. For a season called Legacy in Motion, it's the right first chapter.

At a Glance
Event: Long and Winding Road
Company: Sacramento Ballet
Dates: October 23–25, 2026
Venue: The Sofia
Format: Mixed repertory
Best for: curious first-timers, returning ballet audiences, Beatles listeners, repertory lovers, and anyone interested in Sacramento Ballet's new artistic chapter.

Why a Mixed Program Works as an Opener
A mixed repertory program is one of the best ways to enter ballet. Instead of asking the audience to follow a single plot for an entire evening, it offers several shorter works with different moods, musical worlds, and choreographic ideas. If one piece doesn't reach you, the next one might.

That makes Long and Winding Road useful as an opener: it introduces the company through contrast rather than through one story, style, or period. The Beatles connection gives the evening a recognizable musical doorway. The Balanchine work places the program inside a larger ballet tradition. The Cunningham tribute brings the focus home, to the artists and audiences who shaped Sacramento Ballet over decades.

The Three-Part Frame

Stanton Welch and the Beatles, reimagined. The title work joins two things that don't seem obvious together: ballet's neoclassical vocabulary and music associated with the Beatles, reframed through baroque-inspired arrangements. The point isn't nostalgia or imitation — it's transformation. A familiar musical world becomes more formal, more architectural, more kinetic. You may recognize the emotional weather of the songs, but here bodies carry the meaning instead of lyrics. Watch for line, pattern, speed, and phrasing.

Balanchine, to be announced. The specific work hasn't been named yet, but Balanchine's presence signals the program's ambitions. One of the central figures in twentieth-century ballet, his work is associated with clarity, musicality, speed, and the stripping away of theatrical excess — the stage as music made visible. For an opener, that's a formal anchor, and a chance to see the company tested by choreography where timing, line, and precision matter most.

Honoring Ron Cunningham. The third work turns the evening toward Sacramento Ballet's own history. Cunningham was one of the major figures in the company's development and in Sacramento's dance life, and a legacy work honoring him belongs naturally in a season titled Legacy in Motion. Ballet companies are built not only from repertory but from people — directors, dancers, teachers, audiences — and the long accumulation of performances that make a local institution recognizable to its city. This is the part of the evening most directly tied to that local memory.

What to Watch For
Musical recognition: you don't need ballet vocabulary to notice how a dancer rides a phrase, cuts across a rhythm, or makes a familiar song feel unfamiliar.
The differences between pieces: notice how the stage changes from one work to the next — sharper, softer, more formal, more abstract.
The company's range: an opener is a statement of capacity, and this one asks the company to move through neoclassical work, Balanchine, and local legacy.

Is This a Good First Ballet?
Yes — for many people, a better first ballet than a full-length classic. A mixed program gives you variety, The Sofia gives you proximity, the Beatles connection gives you an accessible musical doorway, and the Cunningham tribute gives the evening local meaning. You don't need to understand everything in advance. Let each piece reset the room.