Danielle Fu
Ms. Fu was born in Ridgewood, New Jersey and started dancing at the age of 3. Shortly thereafter, her family moved to Northern California where she continued her training at Lamorinda Ballet Center under Lynn Homeres from San Francisco Ballet, with Deborah Pitts from Oakland Ballet and Pat Keene from the Royal Ballet. She went on to extend her training by spending the next six years with the San Francisco Ballet School while also attending summer programs such as The Briansky Saratoga Ballet Center, The Jillana School, American Ballet Theatre, and International Dance School in Jackson, Mississippi. While training under the San Francisco Ballet School, Ms. Fu had the privilege of performing many works by George Balanchine, Helgi Tomasson, Lew Christensen, and August Bournonville. She also had the opportunity to perform with the San Francisco Ballet company in Helgi Tommason’s The Nutcracker, Swan Lake and Romeo & Juliet.
Ms. Fu joined Cincinnati Ballet in 2006, and continued to dance with the company for the next eight seasons. Over the course of her career with Cincinnati Ballet, she had performed featured roles such as Tinkerbell in Septime Webre’s Peter Pan, Myrtha in
Devon Carney’s Giselle, The Rose in Victoria Morgan’s and Val Caniparoli’s The Nutcracker, The Lead Woman in James Kudleka’s The Man in Black, Pas de Trios and Big Swan in Swan Lake, and 3rd Movement Principal in George Balanchine’s Symphony in C. She also had the privilege of going on tour with the company in May 2014 to perform at The Joyce Theater in New York City. Ms. Fu also taught at the Otto M. Budig Academy, the official school of the Cincinnati Ballet, for 5 years during her time as a dancer with the company. She then went on to join Kansas City Ballet in 2014.
While continuing her career over the next 8 years with KCB, she had been privileged to be featured in roles such as The Queen of Hearts in Septime Webre’s Alice (in Wonderland), Sanguinic in Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments, Milady de Winter in The Three Musketeers, Snow Queen, Rose and The Sugar Plum Fairy in Devon Carney’s The Nutcracker, Helena in Bruce Wells’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Carabosse in Devon Carney’s The Sleeping Beauty, The Wicked Witch in Septime Webre’s Wizard of Oz, Olympe in Val Caniparoli’s Lady of the Camellias, Russian Girl in George Balanchine’s Serenade and Mina Harker in Michael Pink’s Dracula. She has also been featured in many contemporary works including Klein Persepectives by Andrea Schermoly, Petite Mort by Jiri Kylian, In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated by William Forsythe, In the Upper Room by Twyla Tharp, and Petal by Helen Pickett. She also had the opportunity to perform Opening Night Snow Queen, in Kansas City Ballet’s The Nutcracker, at The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in November 2017.
In the summer of 2015, Ms. Fu was asked to join Amy Seiwert’s Imagery. This summer dance workshop allowed Ms. Fu the opportunity to continue her dance career during the usual summer layoff months. She danced in all three works featured on the performance program at ODC in San Francisco, California as well as taking them on tour to Walla Walla, Washington, Bozeman, Montana, and back to the Joyce Theatre in NYC.
Ms. Fu’s teaching credentials continued at the Summer Intensive for the Kansas City Ballet School as well as coaching several young aspiring dancers for their competitions at YAGP. She also had the privilege of staging and rehearsing a group piece, that ended up wining regionals and was to be a finalist at the finals in NYC in March of 2020. Her teaching and coaching also extends to other summer intensives such as Georgia Academy of Dance, Ballet North in North Kansas City, and the School of Ballet Tucson; previously known as Ballet Arts. She has also taught master classes at the Center Stage Academy of the Performing Arts in Sedalia, MO. Ms. Fu has also been a répétiteur for Adam Hougland’s Rite of Spring along side Wendy Whelan and Melody Mennite’s The 61 and 94 for Kansas City Ballet. As well as Andrea Schermoly’s Klein Perspective for Ballet Tucson in 2023.
During the pandemic in 2020, Ms. Fu wanted to continue creating art for the community of Kansas City. She had a love for the cities murals and decided to highlight them by dancing with them. She created Dancing with Murals and eventually started to include her colleagues once covid restrictions were lifted. Dancing with Murals was featured on The Noticed Network, Spray See MO, Made in KC and in The Independent Magazine in Kansas City, MO.
She joined Ballet Tucson as a Principal Dancer in 2022, not only to continue her dance career, but also to help shape and inspire the next generation of dancers as one of the School of Ballet Tucson’s newest directors, alongside her husband, Liang Fu. While with Ballet Tucson, Ms. Fu had the opportunity to perform lead roles in Justin Peck’s In Creases, Andrea Schermonly’s Klein Perspectives, Opening Night Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker, Raymonda and Giselle by Chieko Imada after Marius Petipa, Margaret Mullin’s Romeo and Juliet, Balcony Pas de Deux, George Balanchine’s Allegro Brilliante, Walpurgisnacht, and Waltz Girl in Serenade. She retired in February of 2024.
Among the 2 years as The School of Ballet Tucson’s School Director, she gained a lot of knowledge and wanted to continue to pursue her passion of teaching and coaching, which is what lead her to open Sonoran Ballet Academy.