Danielle Rowe was at the height of her career, a principal dancer at Houston Ballet renowned for her mile-long lines in “The Sleeping Beauty” and “Giselle.”

And then she took a risk. She quit the company to audition for Nederlands Dans Theater, even though the Dutch troupe’s contorting, expressionist style was like nothing she had danced in her life. This just as her now-husband, fellow dancer Luke Ingham, was about to move to San Francisco Ballet.

“I was ready for a challenge,” Rowe shrugged. She got the job.

On a recent morning, Rowe spoke to The Chronicle in a video interview from her San Francisco home across from Ocean Beach, her expression wily beneath striking silver hair. In the background stood the changing table for the younger of her two children, ages 1 and 4. At 38 and five years retired from the stage, Rowe calls herself “a mum who gets to choreograph sometimes.”

But an observer of her artistic career can’t help predicting that “sometimes” is about to become “frequently” as San Francisco Ballet prepares to release Rowe’s first ensemble work for the company, a dramatic 1920s fantasia titled “Wooden Dimes.” The dance film, part of the Ballet’s Program 3, is sure to be the conversation starter of thecompany’s online digital season, available to stream Thursday, March 4.

If Rowe seems remarkably unflustered, even for a tough Aussie, that’s because “it’s just part of my personality not to get ahead of myself” — a quality she learned from her grandmother.

“She was spunky,” Rowe said, remembering her childhood in Adelaide,Australia. “(My grandmother) jumped on a boat from the U.K. in her 20s to come to a different continent alone and didn’t get married until her 30s, which people thought was late then.” She lived with Rowe’s family, helping to raise the two girls, and left a lasting influence: “My grandmother encouraged me to go with what resonated, full steam ahead.”

That counsel to live boldly in the present has given Rowe strength, especially in the past year, as she conceived and executed this high-profile commission for the San Francisco Ballet, which, like many dance companies, is grappling with gender inequity. Rowe is only the ninth woman choreographer the Ballet has commissioned in more than 30 years. “Wooden Dimes” promises to be wildly imaginative, original and intense.

Rowe set the ballet in the 1920s because San Francisco Ballet had expected, pre-COVID-19, to perform in the Art Deco Orpheum Theater this spring while the War Memorial Opera House underwent renovations. “Wooden Dimes” has shape-shifted into a cinematic dance fantasia, with Rowe relishing the chance to play with detail postproduction, collaborating with Heath Orchard, the Ballet’s director of photography.

Rowe was fortunate that her dance film was capturedin December. As coronavirus cases continued to climb, filming safely became more logistically bedeviled, and a second dance film planned for this season, by choreographer Cathy Marston, has been postponed.

“Wooden Dimes” follows Betty and Robert Fine, whose marriage is tested when Betty (performed by Sarah Van Patten) is plucked from her chorus-line job for stardom. While Betty is dazzled by “bright shiny objects” — performed by dancers representing the blinding lures of fame — Robert (Ingham) toils away at the office, plagued by imaginary demons (Dores André和马克斯Cauthorn性感的挡板esque costumes).

这是一个传奇故事保持的角度来看,inspired by the offstage pain in Rowe’s early dance life. The child of artistic parents, Rowe left home at 15 for the Australian Ballet School. That same year, her father left her mother and sister. She has not spoken to him in two decades.

The confluence of this sudden family trauma and teenage career promise seems to have formed a unique character, reflected in her early output. Her first dance, created for “Switch,” a Nederlands Dans Theater program that allows dancers to make their first works, was a comic ditty she described as “a mini-Wes Anderson film,” and in recent months she has made two hilarious YouTube videos full ofballet spoofsandinside jokesfor the Australian Ballet. But her second ballet, “For Pixie,” ventured to the other end of the emotional spectrum, delving into the anguish of a Nina Simone song in a tense duet and named for Rowe’s grandmother.

After seeing a recording of it, San Francisco Ballet artistic director Helgi Tomasson offered Rowe the chance to make a short duet for the company’s gala, titled “UnSaid,” in 2019.

“(Danielle) uses the classical vocabulary, yet the quality of her choreography is unique,” Tomasson told The Chronicle. “It’s different from others with whom we work, and a refreshing breath for audiences.”

“UnSaid” was another dark heartbreaker, which received a standing ovation that night.

“I knew I wanted to make something that would create an arc in the evening,” Rowe remembered. “A ballet the audience wouldn’t feel the same after.”

Sitting among the audience was Ingham, her partner for 16 years. Rowe has cast him in “Wooden Dimes” because “Robert is an average guy, down-to-earth, working a 9-to-5 job,” and that despite being one of the Ballet’s top dancers, “Luke also sees himself that way.”

Ingham described himself as Rowe’s “biggest fan.” He didn’t want her to retire from dancing after she leftNederlands Dans Theater in 2015 and had their first child, and encouraged her to join the local company SFDanceworks, first as a choreographer and then associate artistic director. Aside from wishing her success, Ingham said he hopes she also has “the opportunity to experiment and fail,” which male choreographers have done without seeing their careers halted.

“Dani is only the second woman choreographer I’ve worked with here,” Ingham said, “and it wasn’t until recently that many of us have thought about why that is.”

A Dance Data Project survey reported that 72% of all works presented by ballet companies in 2019-20 were by men, while Data USA reported a $17,239 salary gap between male and female dancers and dancer-choreographers.

Rowe’s work — along with the commissioning of British choreographerMarston — may be creating a culture shift within the company. Van Patten, a close friend, said she first worked with Rowe on a 2019 dance film commissioned by Los Angeles’ Barak Ballet, “Before You Had a Name,” created when Van Patten was 32 weeks pregnant.

“I was uncertain about whether I would be able to come back to the stage, and it was terrifying,” Van Patten said. “It was special to have another woman encourage me to dance then. It gave me hope that I’d be carried through to the other side.”

Marston, whose earlier San Francisco Ballet commission will be featured on Program 5in April, choreographs around the world, while her husband cares for their two children.

For now, Rowe is working on a dance film for Louisville Ballet and taking her children for long walks on Ocean Beach, which reminds her of Australia’s wide-open shores.

But as “Wooden Dimes” premieres, it seems that Rowe’s creative star, like Betty Fine’s, must shine.

San Francisco Ballet’s Program 3:“Wooden Dimes” by Danielle Rowe. Closing the program is Yuri Possokhov’s “Swimmer.” Available to stream Thursday, March 4. Through March 24. Single tickets, $29. Season tickets, which include three story ballets and four mixed bills, $289. 415-865-2000.www.sfballet.org