But what really stood out in every work, no matter the tone, was exuberant dancing, occasionally blurred by exhaustion yet distinguished by willful, effervescent classicism.

Clearly Ballet de Monterrey, formed in 1990, takes its classical roots seriously. Its artistic directors over the last 18 years have included Fernando Alonso, Fernando Bujones and Robert Hill, formerly a principal dancer with American Ballet Theater. Last year Luis Serrano, a Cuban dancer and former member of Miami City Ballet, took the post.

Angry horns look set to be replaced by arabesques over the coming weeks, as officers in the western Romanian city knuckle down to introductory ballet classes. It is thought that the elegant movements may help to soothe the frayed nerves of stressed drivers, while perhaps rending the dull job of directing traffic a little more interesting.

Like many small companies with big ambitions, Commedia Ballet Theatre took on a little more than it could handle Tuesday at the Courtyard Theater. Even though its new Forbidden Fruit: The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet clocked in at barely more than an hour, it was waaaay too long.

Like Contemporary Ballet Dallas, another small company with big ambitions, Commedia favors pop music, famous dramas and fairy tales, and has a keen desire to be audience-friendly. Young, hip and unintimidating seems to be the mantra.

Maintaining a ballet over decades can resemble a game of Telephone, explains Natalia Akhmarova, artistic director of the sumptuous Tchaikovsky Ballet and Orchestra from Perm, Russia. "Roles are passed down from dancer to dancer, and the coach makes sure it's the right choreography," she says. "But principal dancers like to do something of their own. You know, one dancer will jump really well but not turn so well, and that's why he won't do this turn so clearly. And after a certain number of years, no one knows if there is a big jump or many pirouettes."

To avoid that scenario for the prized "Romeo and Juliet" - made especially for the company in 1972, and coming Friday to Tilles Center - Akhmarova invited the choreographer back last fall. "Finally the dancers would know what it's supposed to be," she says. "And then they could introduce something of their own."

Moscow City Ballet are not a bad ballet company but nor, by any stretch of the imagination, are they the Bolshoi.

Having notched up 1,600 performances all over the UK in the past 15 years, they are to be applauded for reaching the parts of the country other ballet companies don't reach, but this is an uneven offering.

The story's failure to hold together is a shame, because the piece contains some of the most powerfully imagined choreography Nixon has created. Hamlet's first duet with Ophelia, with its artless gestures of questioning and remembering, embodies a tenderly specific moment of reunion. Some of the violence is choreographed with a slamming, shocking detail. Yet, despite compelling performances and an evocative score by Philip Feeney, this does not even add up to a substitute Hamlet.

One scene in David Nixon's staging of Hamlet for Northern Ballet Theatre also crosses my line, but in a different way. The action of Shakespeare's play is relocated here to German-occupied Paris during the second world war and there is one scene where Claudius, a Nazi collaborator, is overseeing the torture of a resistance fighter. This opens with a graphic, very powerfully staged atmosphere of dread as the women sits slumped and shaking in her chair. It's the kind of scene that dance can do best. But when the torturer picks up a pair of pliers and starts to snip off his victim's fingers, producing flying digits and a spurt of fake blood, the moment is lost.

His adaptation of Eugene Labiche's hugely popular 1851 play An Italian Straw Hat, which opened last night at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, omits no choreographic possibility for comic effect.

By the end of the two-hour National Ballet production, one is almost as breathless as the dancers with the strain of following their careening around the stage, not to mention the hard-to-follow plot twists.

As for the sex, the endless positions and the relentless humping of Felix and Virginia set a new standard for stamina.

Dance critic Nancy Reynolds has described Bourrée as “Melodious, colorful, full of comic touches, high spirits, elegance, lots of difficult dancing, and massed effects created by a horde of dancers on stage.” In other words, it’s French to the max, and pure pleasure. Former New York City Ballet soloist Susan Pilarre representing the George Balanchine Trust staged the piece for Miami City Ballet. The sets and costumes for Miami City Ballet’s production of Bourrée Fantasque are courtesy of American Ballet Theatre. Costume re-creation is by Barbara Matera after Karinska.

In his 20th season as artistic director for Mobile Ballet, Winthrop Corey knows there is little reason to change what isn't broken. That does not mean he isn't tweaking the ballet. It has been seven years, after all.

One of his stars, Lauren Woods, danced the role of Swanilda in 2001 and will share the role this time with 16-year-old Caroline Frey, who was the Snow Queen in Corey's "Nutcracker" in December.

[Joseph] Gatti and [Adiarys] Almeida just finished the season as principal dancers with the Cincinnati Ballet and have been invited to join former American Ballet Theater principal Angel Correla's new company in Spain.

"It's a big step. ... I love Spain. I hope everything works out," says Almeida, a native of Cuba.

"I think it wouldn't hurt to try it - take a chance. She's someone I always looked up to, growing up," Gatti says.