Davit Karapetyan

Principal Dancer with the San Francisco Ballet

Dance Open: 2017

Davit’s path to ballet was not easy. While his parents, folk dancers, insisted on choreography lessons, he was happy practicing taekwondo. When they gave up on it, Davit accidently got to the lesson of classical dance where the dancers were performing complicated pirouettes and he decided that he should also do that.

He studied in Yerevan State Choreographic College and the Swiss Ballet School. He started his professional career in the Zurich Ballet and in 2005 he joined the San Francisco Ballet as the principal dancer.

His classical repertoire includes Tomasson’s Giselle (Albrecht), Nutcracker (Nutcracker Prince), Romeo & Juliet (Romeo), Sleeping Beauty (Prince Desiré), and Swan Lake (Prince Siegfried). He successfully performs in Cranko’s Onegin (Onegin); Neumeier’s The Little Mermaid (Sea Witch), Wheeldon’s Cinderella (Prince Gillaume), Ashton’s Voices of Spring; Balanchine’s Agon and Jewels, Possokhov’s Magrittomania and Reflections, Ratmansky’s Russian Seasons, Seven Sonatas and Shostakovich Trilogy; Robbins’ Productions and others.

Karapetyan danced Romeo in the 2015 film of Tomasson’s Romeo&Juliet and Nutcracker Prince in Tomasson’s Nutcracker on PBS’ Great Performances.