San Francisco Ballet dancer Lleyton Ho didn’t have to make use of a lot creativeness to play a frantic college pupil learning anatomy with Victor Frankenstein.
For the corporate’s spring manufacturing of “Frankenstein,” a contemporary ballet adaptation of the traditional Mary Shelley novel, the stage on the Conflict Memorial Opera Home was remodeled into an old-time working theater. Ho was one of many “the students on the side freaking out,” he stated, as their professor, performed by one other dancer, inserted probes right into a faux corpse to see if electrical energy reanimates a useless physique.
Whereas Ho obtained compliments for the “realistic” manner he portrayed terror, he had been that overwhelmed undergraduate in actual life, attempting to maintain up with demanding economics courses at Stanford College, whereas concurrently dancing throughout a 46-week season as a member of San Francisco’s corps de ballet.
“That’s really kind of funny for me to have to do that on stage, because there were definitely a few times where I left a lecture, and I was like, ‘Oh God, I don’t even know what just happened,” Ho stated.
Stanford’s Lleyton Ho, a member of San Francisco Ballet, waits to obtain his diploma in the course of the 2025 Stanford Division of Economics Graduation Ceremony at Hoover Tower at Stanford College in Stanford, Calif., on Sunday, June 15, 2025. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Space Information Group)
On Sunday, the 24-year-old New York native obtained his diploma from Stanford, capping an intense, years-long balancing act: Finding out at certainly one of America’s most selective universities whereas giving his all to one of many world’s premier dance corporations.
Through the college yr, Ho raced forwards and backwards geographically and mentally between Palo Alto and San Francisco. By fastidiously calibrated scheduling and time administration, he slot in lectures, papers and finals round hours of each day dance exercises, rehearsals and performances on the Opera Home.
Ho typically didn’t sleep a lot, and he didn’t have a lot of a social life. However, as a highschool senior, he obtained two wonderful alternatives: Go to Stanford or be part of the San Francisco Ballet. Simply a kind of alternatives would have been sufficient for any common high-achiever, however Ho determined to do each.
Through the week earlier than his June 15 commencement, Ho loved a uncommon week, the primary in years, when he didn’t have to fret about college or dance. He had turned in his final paper the week earlier than, and the corporate’s season had completed in Might.
Within the firm’s rehearsal studio, Ho demonstrated one of many jumps he had labored to excellent since age 9. For a cabriole facet, he took flight and, for a mili-second, he created an ideal human line within the air, along with his two legs knifed collectively to 1 facet and his left arm raised to the opposite at a exact angle. Ho made it look straightforward whereas carrying an expression of pure pleasure, displaying why he labored all these years to earn a spot in “the SFB.”
Lleyton Ho, a member of the San Francisco Ballet’s corps de ballet talks throughout an interview on the firm’s studio on June 12, 2025, in San Francisco, Calif. (Dai Sugano/Bay Space Information Group)
For critical dancers, performing for the SFB, whilst corps member, is a excessive achievement, maybe akin in sports activities to being on a Tremendous Bowl-winning NFL crew. Based in 1933, the Bay Space firm is the oldest skilled ballet firm in the US and ranks among the many world’s prime 10 corporations, together with the Bolshoi, the Royal, the New York Metropolis Ballet and the American Ballet Theatre.
Ho’s path to San Francisco started as a younger gymnast in suburban New York who aspired to compete within the Olympics. Whereas recovering from a wrist harm, his coach steered he take a ballet class. “Initially, I was a little hesitant, but I realized I connected with the movement a lot more than I did with gymnastics,” he stated.
Ho first studied on the Faculty of American Ballet, based by George Balanchine. At 16, he auditioned for an SFB summer season intensive program. Then-director Patrick Armand invited Ho to hitch the corporate’s demanding trainee program, which prepares artists to work professionally. Ho, in flip, was excited to work with Armand, who was notably adept at coaching male dancers of their tough athletic strikes.
For the following two years, Ho lived with about 25 different younger dancers in housing close to the Opera Home. He attended each day courses in method, choreography and stagecraft whereas ending highschool on-line. Throughout his senior yr, which coincided with the 2018-2019 ballet season, he appeared ahead to getting his first skilled job however nonetheless utilized to Stanford and different faculties in case dance didn’t work out.
Issues bought sophisticated when then-Creative Director Helgi Tomasson supplied Ho a contract to apprentice for the 2019-2020 season, whereas Stanford despatched him an acceptance letter. He determined to defer admission to Stanford for a yr so he might seize this once-in-a-lifetime probability to star his dance profession.
However the COVID-19 pandemic ended Ho’s first skilled season prematurely. With nobody realizing when – or if – the corporate would ever carry out once more, Ho enrolled at Stanford for the autumn of 2020 and studied remotely. The next yr, he then took a depart of absence to give attention to dance after he was promoted to corps de ballet and the corporate returned with a full season.
However Ho quickly realized he had a choice to make. “If I give up ballet, I know I will regret it. If I give up Stanford, there’s a high likelihood that I would regret it as well,” he stated. “I was, like, the scheduling is going to be crazy interesting. It’s definitely going to push me to the brink. But if it’s possible, I want to give it a try.”
The work season for a San Francisco Ballet dancer often begins in July, then ramps up in the course of the efficiency season that from runs from December to Might, with dancers anticipated to be at school and rehearsals all day, then doing exhibits Tuesday by means of Sunday, going as late as 10 p.m.
For Stanford, Ho signed up for all Monday lectures or 8:30 a.m. courses so he might be again in San Francisco by the late morning. He took benefit of exhibits when he didn’t have to bounce a lot to do homework backstage. In the meantime, he selected to main in economics as a result of it’s “versatile” however he additionally found a love for “nerding out” over econometrics and statistics.
This previous season, he was thrilled to carry out in “Frankenstein,” and he bought his first probability to bounce all by himself on the huge Opera Home stage whereas performing within the aptly titled, three-man trendy ballet piece, “Solo,” by Dutch grasp choreographer Hans van Manen.
Ho would love extra solo alternatives or to work with different thrilling new choreographers, although his purpose is to “just dance to the best of my ability.” He is aware of {that a} profession in dance, as in sports activities, can solely final so lengthy, so he’s grateful for his Stanford diploma, pondering he might in the future work for a dance firm and maybe use to his coaching to investigate and enhance viewers numbers.
In the meantime, he’s considering a extra fast future when, for the primary time since center college, he’s not juggling college and dance. “What I have to wrap my head around is that I’m so used to going home after a performance and being like ‘What assignment do I have to do?’ Now I suddenly have a ton more free time that I used to have.”
