San Francisco Ballet Principal Madeline Woo Is a Forward

San Francisco Ballet Principal Madeline Woo Is a Forward-Thinking Force You probably first saw Madeline Woo on social media. She popped to the forefront of the digital dance consciousness in the early 2020s, when clips of her in class at Royal Swedish Ballet went viral. Woo’s buoyancy in grand allégro immediately captured the dance world’s attention, her jumps so easy and self-assured that they read as sunny optimism. Even in the early days of her career, she found a global audience online. Now with San Francisco Ballet, Woo is a forward-looking force in ballet: a celebrated principal who prioritizes being relatable, an exacting technician with a focus on individuality, and a multidimensional artist whose influence extends far beyond the stage. Fearlessness and Polish Woo’s training began in Southern California, at V and T Dance Academy in Laguna Hills, with Russian teachers Victor and Tatiana Kasatsky. While most of the students were recreational dancers, the teachers were serious about the school’s Vaganova-style training. After earning a scholarship to the John Cranko School through Youth America Grand Prix, Woo left her family home in suburban California at age 15 to move into a Stuttgart apartment with a group of dancers. “Everyone was speaking German, I didn’t understand a thing, and I didn’t know how to take care of myself,” she remembers. The culture shock extended to the studio, where she was suddenly one of many in a cohort of highly talented, fiercely competitive pre-professional students. “Those girls were so, so good,” she says. “I was going through puberty at that time, so I was feeling uncomfortable with my body because it was growing in places that aren’t the stereotypical aesthetic for a ballet body. And every day I was being told that, which was mentally pretty exhausting as well.” Training at the John Cranko School also required a different way of working, focused on fundamentals. “Being raised in America, I was trained to do competitions.” says Woo, “and in competitions you need to wow people. In Europe, they wanted us to home in on cleaning and polishing technique. I had to learn more about placement and control.” Despite her current success, Woo didn’t have companies clamoring to hire her when she graduated in 2017. When she wasn’t offered a job with Stuttgart Ballet, she auditioned around Europe. “I got rejected from quite a few companies,” she says. You get pretty desperate to the point of thinking, ‘I could just quit and do something else.’ ” Then artistic director Nicolas Le Riche offered her a job with the Royal Swedish Ballet in Stockholm later that year. “I loved the opera house and the studios,” she says. With the fearlessness cultivated in her early comp years and the precise technique honed at the John Cranko School, Woo quickly had opportunities at RSB. She was scheduled to perform Kitri in Don Quixote when COVID-19 hit. During the shutdown, she was promoted from corps de ballet to first soloist (bypassing second soloist). “That turned some heads of course,” she says, “and the magnifying glass was on me after that, because after a promotion you have to live up to that promotion—especially if it’s a double promotion.” Finding Her Way That magnifying glass soon extended far beyond Stockholm as Woo experimented with social media. “I initially started posting just for fun,” she says. That changed over time, as Woo’s clips began to go viral on Instagram Reels. “I honed it down to videos that did better than others, usually dancing in class videos,” she says. The dance world took note, and she received offers for galas and performances around the world. Woo also became a beacon on social media for her relatability outside of the studio, sharing stories of her close friendships, her cats—and, notably, her tattoos. When in 2024 she felt she was in a rut, she went to artist Georgios Kazakis, who created a tattoo sleeve. “Basically, it was to look powerful,” she says. While it wasn’t her first tattoo (that was a California poppy), it was the first that would be visible onstage. “I was like, ‘I didn’t ask anyone at work if I could do this, and I might get fired,’ ” she says. Woo wore long sleeves for the next month in the studio. “Eventually, I revealed it,” she says, “and of course, people commented whatever they needed to comment, whether it was positive or negative. And then, no one cared anymore.” It was a confirmation to Woo that she could prioritize her individuality within the framework of professional ballet. “You can still do your job and look classical,” she says—noting that, when the role requires it, she covers her tattoos with makeup. As Woo cultivated an international following, she was also finding her way through the major roles in RSB’s repertory. Le Riche challenged Woo by casting her in roles that didn’t play to her natural strengths. “I’m usually more of a firecracker-type dancer, so I like to do jumpy, exciting roles,” she says. “My weak part was having a lot of control and the slower stuff, and Nicolas would purposefully put me into roles or variations that needed that, in order to make me improve. In the moment it was terrible. Now looking back, I really appreciate that.” In 2022, Tamara Rojo, then artistic director of English National Ballet, choreographed a new Cinderella for Royal Swedish Ballet. “It was one of the best creation processes I’ve ever been through,” remembers Woo. “I ended up being first cast, which was a surprise. She said it was because she loved the joy in my dancing.” Following a December Cinderella performance, Woo was promoted to principal onstage. “I totally broke character,” she says. “I started jumping up and down.” Creating MADDWOO At the end of 2024, a tear of the rectus femoris tendon in her hip kept Woo out of the studio for several months, prompting a broader reckoning of a future beyond ballet. “Our careers as dancers are so contingent on us being healthy,” says Woo. “Suddenly, I wasn’t getting better after a couple of days of rest and ibuprofen.” She brainstormed with her boyfriend, Ethan Watts, then a dancer with RSB (he has since retired and moved with Woo to San Francisco, where he grew up). Together, they evaluated her offstage strengths—her massive social media reach, experience promoting brands, and her distinctive SoCal surf-skate–meets–Scandi-minimalist style—and hatched an idea: a fashion line, starting with a capsule collection. “I am really in love with fashion, whether in the studio or on the street,” says Woo. “We were like, ‘Why don’t we make a line combining that?’ I started to design and sketch, and I ended up coming up with the first line, which is a leotard, some sleeves, and a pair of oversized jeans.” MADDWOO launched in December 2025 and is set to be part of Stockholm Fashion Week in June 2026. Woo’s inspiration for the line sprang also from personal experience. After years in the unforgiving leotard and tights of a ballet-school uniform, she had found the freedom, as a professional, to dress as she pleased for class and rehearsal a revelation. It made her realize how much her style influenced her mindset. “It’s been my journey to finding my confidence in my body,” she says. “We’re forced to wear these uniforms in school, and to look a certain way, even though going through puberty, that’s really hard. Joining a company where I could wear what I wanted was huge. I started liking how my body looked in the mirror. It affects how you move, how you act, everything. I wanted to share that experience, not just with dancers but the general public as well.” A New Home In 2025, Woo was ready for a change. She wanted to be closer to family in California, so she reached out to Rojo, who had by then moved to San Francisco Ballet. “I loved the direction she was taking the company, so I took class and asked for a meeting with her,” says Woo. “I walked in really nervous with a whole spiel and my notebook, and she actually already had a contract for me.” Rojo says Woo was a natural hire for a company that prioritizes individuality in its principals. “Physically, she’s obviously very powerful,” says Rojo. “She has amazing elevation, jump, spectacular range of movement. And there’s something about her that is different from everybody else. She’s unapologetically herself.” Woo arrived in San Francisco during the company’s long summer-rehearsal period and jumped right into the ballets for the season, working with Rojo on both theory and practice. “Tamara is very intellectual about approaching how characters would react, and where and when the story takes place,” says Woo. “And she had crazy lines and hyperextension and so gives me tips on how to deal with that. It’s great to be hypermobile and have nice hyperextended knees, but also it’s really tough to dance.” During the season, Woo stood out in The Blake Works, by William Forsythe, one of the choreographers whose works she had been looking forward to interpreting. “Maddie has an incredibly instinctive response to musicality that’s quite unique,” says Jodie Gates, who staged the work at SFB. “What’s interesting about her as a ballerina is she has an element of risk-taking, and she seems fearless. And then she laughs if it doesn’t work out.” What Gates observed—that Woo takes her work seriously but gives herself the freedom to experiment, take risks and, occasionally, even fail—describes Woo’s life outside of ballet as well. As she settled in her new home, she started sharing longer-form YouTube videos documenting her life, from thrifting in the Haight-Ashbury district with fellow SFB principal Nikisha Fogo to traveling the world for galas and, increasingly, big-name brand collaborations. Woo hopes to help make more space in ballet for individuality, risk-taking, and joy. “I want people to know that it’s okay to have your own personality, to make mistakes, and be human,” she says. “We don’t have to hold ourselves on these pedestals and be perfect all the time. It’s also fine to crack jokes and have fun at your job. You really shine when you home in on who you truly are—that’s what people love to see.”