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The beauty of inflections: SFB's Muriel Maffre has built a stellar career on elegance and a maverick spirit.

Article Excerpt
Even in full company class where talent lurks everywhere. San Francisco Ballet principal Muriel Maffre draws your attention and locks in your gaze. She is the five-foot-ten dancer who is not looking into the mirror while she adjusts her epaulement. She's the one who is working at the barre shrouded in an aura of introspection. She talks to nobody. She corrects her balances, fixes her placement, measures her tendus, and gauges her extension, which seems to taper into infinity.

French-born Maffre has subscribed to this work Ethic for all of her 17 years at SFB. Her influence in the company has been profound. She has proved that unconventional bodies can flourish in the American ballet system. She has inspired more than one promising ballerina who did not fit into the standard mold. She has instilled in her consorts a refinement in partnering they never dreamed possible. She has animated exceptional new dances from renowned choreographers like Christopher Wheeldon and Mark Morris. And she has gathered a host of admirers for whom she represents everything that makes SFB distinctive and forward-looking.

"It's very comforting." Maffre says without false modesty, "that people appreciate your differences. I used to think I would never fit in." She will also tell you that, "I have always been less interested in the finished product than in how I got there."

In Maffre's obsession with process may lie the secret to...

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