28 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM {punchline} When asked which ballet protagonist she most identifies with, Jasmine Jimison, a Peninsula-raised principal dancer at San Francisco Ballet, doesn’t hesitate: Giselle, the peasant girl turned spirit. There’s certainly an ephemeral air in the way Jasmine dances, every movement silky and sylph-like, but there’s another reason she feels a kinship with the heroine of one of ballet’s most enduring classics. “She’s a pretty shy girl,” the ballerina observes—an unexpected admission from someone who routinely performs in front of thousands. “It’s so funny that I chose this as a career,” she chuckles. “I say sometimes, ‘I don’t like being perceived.’” After mulling it over a moment, she adds, “I kind of go into my own world when I’m on stage … That is where I’m living in that moment, and nothing else really matters.” Giselle holds special meaning for another reason. It was the first title role Jasmine danced in a full-length narrative ballet—and it’s where she fell in love with dance as a form of storytelling. COVER PHOTO: Jasmine performs with other San Francisco Ballet School students in Helgi Tomasson’s Meistens Mozart in 2017. PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF: LINDSEY RALLO - SAN FRANCISCO BALLET
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