Wooden Dimes
April 5 – 13, 2024 | Newmark Theatre
Production for Wooden Dimes World Premiere supported in part by the Ferguson-Yntema Family Trust

OBT Artistic Director Dani Rowe’s dramatic one-act ballet Wooden Dimes launches audiences into the tumultuous relationship of 1920’s-era chorus girl Betty Fine and her husband Robert, a passion ultimately ripped apart by resentment and jealousy. Originally produced as a film during the pandemic for San Francisco Ballet’s digital season, Wooden Dimes will be brought to life on stage in this exciting premiere featuring the OBT Orchestra with Guest Conductor and Wooden Dimes Composer, James M. Stephenson.

Sharing the program is a romance with a brighter ending, Ben Stevenson’s Three Preludes. A cautious studio flirtation between two dancers transforms into an affair under the influence of the rapturous Rachmaninoff score. Just Above the Surface by New York-based Choreographer Yue Yin completes the program. Described by Culture Vulture as a “goosebump-inducing” work, this ensemble piece “seduces the audience to sway along while hoping that it will never end.”

Video credit: Sarah Van Patten and Luke Ingham. Courtesy of San Francisco Ballet.