Salamanca made news this past April, when, in response to the proposed arts funding cuts in San Diego, Salamanca appeared before city council to protest, as cameras rolled. Like much of San Diego’s dance scene, Golden State has recently weathered its share of financial troubles, despite which the company works to build a roster of new dancers and closed its 2025-2026 season in early June with Salamanca’s "A Midsummer Night’s Dream” along with “The Four Seasons,” a world premiere by Houston Thomas, at the historic Balboa Theatre in the Gaslamp district of downtown San Diego. 

Thomas is a former soloist with the Dresden Semperopera and his name is beginning to pop up as an emerging choreographer after having won the 2025 Princess Grace Award. On the June 7th performance, Thomas’ abstract construction of Vivaldi’s “The Four Season” seemingly justifies the hype. Composed of six movements, Thomas’ exercise in contemporary ballet vocabulary was kinetically architectural in its structure and musicality. Dancers moved in and out of the onstage tableaux with kaleidoscopic impressions by young dancers capable of both line and movement. This was a deconstructed baroque offering—dancers wore only tights and leotards complemented by pastel lighting. The falling snow projections during the Winter section, however, seemed a tad on the nose, given the broader abstract nature of the work. 

The principals of the first two movements, Savannah Colby and Preston Swovelin, proved capable of multi-dimensional attack. The third movement, the last of “La Primavera,” contained a pas de deux by Corah Abbott and Daniel Kubr. Abbott is a tall, leggy recent graduate of the Juilliard School and who moves in and out of hyper-mobile extensions and fluid torso movements. Golden State understands the necessity of spotlighting emerging talent. Apart from these artists however, some of the other dancers cast as principals appeared lacking in the same confidence, their eyes more focused on the floor rather than projecting outward into the theatre. This was especially true in the second part of the evening.