Brennan Wall, who joined Smuin Contemporary Ballet as a dancer in 2019, was nervous when she was asked to choreograph for the company’s annual Choreography Showcase.
“I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to choreograph, and Amy London, our rehearsal director, saw me hesitating and gave me the piece of paper to sign up and was like, ‘Brennan, you’re doing it,’” she recalls. “Not only was it my first time choreographing on the company, but it was my first year, and so I was still getting to know people.”
Wall will dance for the fourth time in this year’s showcase, running Feb. 14-23 at the Smuin Center for Dance in San Francisco, as well as premiere a work she created. The program also includes world premieres by nine other company dancers: AL Abraham, Tessa Barbour, Jacopo Calvo, Maggie Carey, Julia Gundzik, Cassidy Isaacson, Marc LaPierre, Shania Rasmussen and Yuri Rogers.
Wall, who established a rapport with her fellow dancers soon after joining the company, says they provided valuable support and helped her overcome her initial jitters.
“Choreographing on your coworkers is an amazing experience, and Smuin Ballet is really special in that I feel all of my coworkers are so kind, make an effort to understand you and what it is that you are looking for,” she says. “I feel the first piece that I set was such a learning experience, not just about how I work but how everyone else works with me—I knew I could depend on people to help me out—so what I learned from it was to lean on the dancers you are choreographing on because they probably have a better idea than you do.”
In 2022, she created “Untwine” for the showcase; the piece later made it to the main stage in Smuin’s Dance Series 2 last season. After the pas de deux set on Isaacson and Brandon Alexander was well received, Wall was asked to expand it, so she turned it into a 12-to-15-minute piece. Wall also choreographed “Last Christmas,” set to the hit tune by “Wham!” which premiered in the troupe’s annual holiday show.
The showcase, which was established in 2008 by artistic director emerita Celia Fushille, provides the dancers with state-of-the-art studio space, time and freedom to develop their choreographic skills. As choreographers, they are responsible for finding music, creating steps, managing their fellow dancers and schedules, expressing their vision, and coaching the project to completion. In the process, they learn to collaborate on lighting, costumes and stagecraft.
Smuin Artistic Director Amy Seiwert is a key source of support for the budding choreographers when they need it.
“Amy has been really fun to be around because she doesn’t always offer her input, but when she does, she has a really good eye,” Wall says. “The way she has helped the most is by being an example, by being part of her work, feeling her movement and seeing the entire vision.”
Wall’s dance for the 2025 showcase features six men and four women dressed in business suits—wardrobe supervisor Vincent Avery assists with those—and is set to “Recto verso” by the French electronic duo Paradis.
Wall says it’s something of a nod to her 2019 dance. However, after overcoming early struggles with insecurity, moving to a new city and starting a new job, she’s learned to have more fun. As a result, the new dance is more upbeat.
She says, “It begins the same way, and it has similar costuming because in 2019 I had everyone wear black, which was a reflection of myself: very serious, like the piece reflected a dancer who got too lost in it and the art. … now this piece is the complete opposite, where everybody takes themselves really seriously until the music comes on, and then they start jamming out and have a fun time, which is what I have learned to do.”
Wall today sees dance from the perspective of choreographers, with more patience, appreciation and understanding for them, and more trust for their vision. She’s also especially fascinated with the visual aspect of choreographing, which she compares to playing with an abacus.
“Moving people across, around and in between, it feels like you’re sliding beads, but you’re not; you’re asking people to be that for you and to be this vision board,” she says. “It’s really satisfying once you find what you’re looking for, to see it click together, and you’re like, ‘That’s the picture I wanted!’ When it matches the music and you have the two of those hitting your brain at the same time, it feels so exciting to know that you’ve created what it is you saw in your head when you heard that music.”
Smuin Contemporary Ballet’s Choreography Showcase runs Feb. 14-23 at Smuin Center for Dance, 1830 17th St., San Francisco. Tickets ($35-$55) are sold out, but a $15 digital replay is available from Feb. 19-March 2. Visit smuinballet.org.
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