Yuan Yuan Tan

Yuan Yuan Tan is a Chinese ballet dancer, widely recognized as one of the foremost artists in the global ballet community. Born in 1977 in Shanghai, China, she began her ballet training at the Shanghai Dance School at the age of 11. In 1992, she garnered international acclaim by winning the Gold Medal at the International Ballet Competition in Paris. The following year, she won the Gold Medal in the junior female classical division and the Nijinsky Award at the International Ballet and Modern Dance Competition in Japan.

In 1995, at the age of 18, Tan joined the San Francisco Ballet as a soloist and was rapidly promoted to principal dancer in 1997, making her the youngest dancer to achieve this rank in the company’s history and the first-ever Chinese prima ballerina in the United States. In 2012, she was appointed Richard C. Barker Principal Dancer. Tan has excelled in a wide range of roles, from the classical ballet canon to contemporary works, often collaborating with renowned choreographers such as John Neumeier, Yuri Possokhov, Christopher Wheeldon, and Helgi Tomasson, among others.

Tan’s contributions to ballet have been recognized with numerous accolades, including the prestigious Benois de la Danse award in 2002, which is regarded as one of the highest honors in the ballet world.

In 2024, she joins the jury for the Asia-Pacific preselection of the Prix de Lausanne, which takes place in Macau from September 27 to 29.