Tina LeBlanc

Tina LeBlanc (born October 17, 1966) is an American ballet dancer, teacher and ballet master. She joined the Joffrey Ballet in 1984. In 1992, she joined the San Francisco Ballet as a principal dancer. She retired in 2009, then joined the faculty of the San Francisco Ballet School, before returning to the San Francisco Ballet as a ballet master in 2019.

Early life and training Tina LeBlanc was born on October 17, 1966, at Erie, Pennsylvania. She has a brother and two sisters, including younger sister Sherri, who later danced with both the New York City Ballet and San Francisco Ballet. In 1967, she moved with her family to Smyrna, Delaware, where she started taking dance classes. She wanted to join the American Ballet Theatre due to its classical repertory. She joined Joffrey II in 1982, Seventeen months later, in 1984, she joined the Joffrey Ballet, directed by Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino. At the time, the company was based in New York but toured extensively, and she soon received nationwide attention and critical acclaim.

In 2000, she won the Isadora Duncan Dance Award for Individual Performance for her work that entire season with the San Francisco Ballet. The following year, she won the award for Ensemble Performance with colleagues, Waldo, Long, Roman Rykine and Gennadi Nedvigin, for their performances in Forsythe's The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude.

In 2007, LeBlanc tore her anterior cruciate ligament and underwent surgery. Though she planned to retire after the end of the 2008 season, she decided to complete rehab and retire in 2009, after spending 17 years at the company and when she was 42. Following her retirement from dance, she joined the San Francisco Ballet School faculty. In 2019, she left to return to the San Francisco Ballet as a ballet master.

Personal life In 1986, LeBlanc met Marco Jerkunica. They married in 1988, and have two sons, born in 1997 and 2003. She noted she had always wanted to have children during her dance career, "because I want to have a long career, and I don't want to wait until I'm 40 to have kids."