Get to Know: Branislav Henselmann

Meet SF Ballet’s New Executive Director

This season we welcome new Executive Director Branislav Henselmann to SF Ballet. He brings a wealth of global arts leadership experience to the helm alongside Artistic Director Tamara Rojo, joining us at an exciting moment of artistic growth and evolution.

To offer a glimpse into his personality beyond the boardroom, we invited him to take the Proust Questionnaire—a 19th-century parlor game-turned-classic Q&A that reveals personal insights through a series of reflective, revealing questions. In true SF Ballet fashion, we’ve added a bit of a ballet twist.

SAN FRANCISCO BALLET: What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Branislav Henselmann: Sitting (in the shade) and looking at the ocean.

SFB: Who would you invite to attend the ballet with?

BH: Invite to the ballet so I can have a conversation with them about it after? Hannah Arendt and Walter Benjamin; their intellects continue to transcended their lifespans and provide (at least for me) so many answers to the complexities of the world we live in. Also, any child – the honesty of their feedback and observations is unmatched.

SFB: Who are your favorite choreographers?

BH: This is such a difficult question. It’d be so much easier to answer this if we were looking at individual pieces by specific choreographers. I happen to love dance theatre, so two dance makers who come to mind are Pina Bausch for the sheer ferocity of her ability to evoke and instill feelings of the unsaid, and Dimitris Papaioannou, who creates breathtaking mythical worlds, replete with archetypal images, through visual orchestration and manipulation of movement (and the absence of it) as scenery. And then there is the genius of Balanchine, of course, for his unmatched musicality and the unique ability to leave an unmistakable, almost etched pattern of the amalgamation of music and movement in my memory.

SFB: Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

BH: Currently: “notional” and “foundational”. Also, “It is what it is – now we move on”.

Apologies, everyone.

SFB: Which ballet step would you most like to master?

BH: A perfect tendu.

SFB: What do you consider your greatest achievement?

BH: I think my biggest achievement is moving on from thinking about my life and career through a lens of individual achievements, but rather focusing on stewarding small, incremental contributions, hoping to create a series of tiny dents in the great arc of history’s bend in the right direction. That impact on the collective good, echoing into the future, is perhaps the essence of the difference between “achievement” and “stewardship” for me.

SFB: Which living person do you most admire?

BH: Every true artist – artists are our truth speakers.

SFB: Which ballet character do you most identify with?

BH: I am not sure I identify with any single character, but I have always been fascinated by Sir Peter Wright’s Myrtha. I have so many questions for her.

SFB: What is your motto?

BH: “Keep the channel open.”

Or, in full words of Martha Graham (by way of Agnes de Mille): “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”

Get to know our staff and dancers and stay tuned for more upcoming Proust Questionnaires here on the blog!