San Francisco Ballet Champions New Work It's expensive to produce new ballets. There are few remarkable ballet choreographers to make them. The outcome is uncertain. Mixed repertory programs don't sell well. What audiences really want - and will pay for - are full-length story ballets, preferably "Swan Lake" or "The Nutcracker." So goes the refrain among a great number of North American ballet companies when talk turns to the scarcity of new works or ballet's imminent demise. It's always terminal, apparently. And then there is San Francisco Ballet, where several premieres happen every season, the repertory is packed with pieces created in recent years, and houses are reliably full. Under the leadership of Helgi Tomasson, the company has become one of the world's most important vehicles for new ballet choreography, rivaled only in the United States by New York City Ballet, and in Europe by the Stuttgart Ballet, Dutch National Ballet and the Paris Opera Ballet. On Wednesday, the company offers New York a taste of its repertory in an ambitious two-week season at the David H. Koch Theater that was almost derailed by a dispute between the dancers" union and the management. Luckily for New York audiences, it was resolved, and the company arrives as scheduled, with an initial week of four mixed-bill combinations of seven works, six of them commissioned by San Francisco in the last three years. The seventh, Serge Lifar's "Suite en Blanc," jumps back to 1943. The choreographers include major international figures like Alexei Ratmansky, Mark Morris, Wayne McGregor and Christopher Wheeldon, as well as the company's resident choreographer, Yuri Possokhov; Mr. Tomasson; and Edwaard Liang. Even the full-length "Cinderella," which concludes the season, was recently commissioned (with Dutch National Ballet) from Mr. Wheeldon, a choreographer who has had a long association with the company and has created some of his finest works there. The credit is due to the Icelandic-born Mr. Tomasson, 71, who has made new work a central tenet of his artistic policy since he took over the company in 1985. "It goes way back, to when I first came to New York to study," he said by telephone from San Francisco. I joined the Joffrey Ballet, where Robert Joffrey was really the first ballet director to be bringing in choreographers like Alvin Ailey and Glen Tetley. It was fascinating to me, and I think that ignited something in me that stayed. In 1970, Mr. Tomasson joined New York City Ballet, where he was a principal dancer for 15 years. "You had Balanchine and Robbins doing new work all the time," he said. For me it was the norm, and when I went to San Francisco, I knew that my main idea was to search for something new all the time. Mr. Tomasson emphasized his respect for tradition; the company has an extensive Balanchine repertory, performs the classics and does the obligatory "Nutcracker" season every December. But his programs tell where his heart lies; as is true of this New York tour, a majority (usually six out of eight each year) are mixed repertory. And yes, they sell well, he said, sounding mildly surprised. "Even in the recession, they didn't buy less tickets," he said. They like this work, and they get to see so many more principal dancers perform than in a full-length ballet, where you really only have two or three. Mr. Tomasson spends considerable time each year traveling in order to see new work. He said that he looks for choreographers with a good knowledge of the classical vocabulary, but that he is open to different aesthetics, citing the work of William Forsythe and Mr. McGregor. Not every work gets raves, but Mr. Tomasson is phlegmatic: "You keep at it, and hopefully good ballets will pop up," he said. The company commissions three or four new ballets a year, on average (this season there will be premieres from Val Caniparoli, Mr. Tomasson and the rising young British choreographer Liam Scarlett), and Mr. Tomasson said that he tries to present something new to West Coast audiences in each program, even if it is not a company commission. Later this season, Mr. Ratamanksy's ambitious "Shostakovich Trilogy," created for American Ballet Theater, joins the company's repertory. "Yes, he does hire people you see elsewhere," said Mr. Wheeldon, whose 2010 "Ghosts" will be performed in New York for the first time during this run. But there is always some sort of coup with Helgi. He doesn't bring things in because they are in fashion; he brings what he believes in, which is impressive. That belief is apparent in the regularity with which Mr. Tomasson offers certain choreographers repeat commissions. Mr. Morris has created eight pieces for the company since "Maelstrom" in 1994; his most recent, "Beaux," described by Alastair Macaulay in The New York Times as "the happiest rethink of masculinity that ballet has seen in decades," will be shown during the troupe's New York season. For his part, Mr. Morris said in a telephone interview: "I think they are fabulous, in many ways the best ballet company we've got. They do my work the way I intend it to be done. Helgi, pretty much alone amidst big ballet directors who choreograph, is noncompetitive. He is completely hands-off, trusts the people he hires and has curated an excellent group of dancers. Working with them has decided how I work with ballet companies in general. Mr. Morris said he had created the all-male "Beaux," set to music by Bohuslav Martinu, partly in response to the demands of San Francisco's schedule on dancers. His other reason, he said, was that he was "tired of the fake virility in ballet." Unlike most ballet companies, which alternate rehearsal and performance periods throughout a season, San Francisco has a marathon rehearsal period from August to December, then performs continuously through May. "It can be really tricky with scheduling," Mr. Morris said. I think it's really hard on the dancers to learn so many ballets at once. Mr. Wheeldon, who is almost up to Mr. Morris's tally, with seven pieces for the company since 2000, said he felt the long rehearsal period was conducive to creativity. "It's long, but very focused," he said. There is more time to play around, a longer gestation period, and the dancers are so used to making new work that they are the perfect tools for a choreographer.