Julia Feldman is a Sacramento artist, and the rest of the dance world has started paying close attention. In the past year alone, she created a work for the Joffrey Ballet's Winning Works program, took top honors at Milwaukee Ballet's 2026 Genesis International Choreographic Competition, choreographed a commission for San Francisco's Smuin Contemporary Ballet, and completed a commission for the final edition of the National Choreographers Initiative. For any choreographer, that would be a banner year. For one who grew up in Davis, and now calls Sacramento home, it is a source of real civic pride.

Hearts, her first full main-stage commission for Sacramento Ballet, returns after its 2022 premiere and shows exactly why audiences across the country are taking notice. The piece unfolds through intricate patterns and ever-shifting relationships, carried by a hypnotic, minimalist score that rewards the ear as much as the eye. Feldman's musicality is meticulous, yet the feeling behind it runs warm and deep. "I really believe in the power of dance and music to provide really therapeutic experiences," she told us, and that conviction pulses through every phrase.

Watching Hearts, you witness more than a rising choreographer. You see what becomes possible when a company invests in its own artists and gives them room to flourish. That kind of growth also sits at the center of Helimets's vision, and it depends on audiences and supporters who believe in it too.