For example, the "Défilé" was choreographed by academy education director Peter Christie and featured 150 students. It was an appropriate piece that moved along quickly, highlighting students at various levels of study looking well rehearsed and happy to be there. Older students mentored young ones on and off the stage giving it the feel of a school where learning is taking place for all. A sign of health for any dance school was the strong showing of a half-dozen very competent boys.

In the dance world, there really is no one quite like McGregor, partly because he has his fingers in so many pies that no one else could begin to compete. He's been running his own contemporary dance troupe, Random, for the past 16 years; for the past two he's been the Royal's chief choreographic catalyst; he spends months working with scientists on research into how the brain functions in relation to the body; in April the Stockport native was appointed the Government's first Youth Dance Champion; he maintains one of the busiest freelance choreographing careers in the world. And he has built his own dance studio and artists' retreat on an island in the Indian Ocean.

“You know me, I'm a man of action,” McGregor says, and no matter how full his diary he looks great on it.

Cuban prima ballerina assoluta Alicia Alonso celebrated the 65th anniversary of the premiere of "Giselle," accompanied by three of her most famous dance partners Azari Plisetski, Cyril Atanassoff and Vasili Vasíliev.

Kenneth MacMillan's Manon is named for its heroine, but the major interest in this Royal Ballet performance was Edward Watson as the hero. The lyrical solos need flowing line and control. Those aren't qualities I'd associate with Watson, but he dances them with new smoothness and focus.

The decor was stunning. The costumes were beautiful. The cast was well chosen. Still photos were magnificent. And you cannot get it wrong with Prokofiev. And yet Tim Rushton’s big scale “Cinderella” failed to live up to its promise. What went wrong?

Somewhere in the middle of "Citizen," the very peculiar but fascinating new ballet by Lauri Stallings for American Ballet Theatre, the house lights come on and a random set of people in street clothes suddenly wander onstage, expressionless.

Who are these people? Dancers on their night off? Crew members? Tourists pulled in off West 55th Street? By the time you articulate those questions in your head, they're gone.

That’s four masterpieces in generally impressive shape. Ballet Theater now needs to improve in two offstage factors: conducting and orchestral playing. At some performances sections of the finale of Tchaikovsky’s third orchestral suite (“Theme and Variations”), Chausson’s “Poème” (“Jardin”) and Schoenberg’s “Verklärte Nacht” (Tudor’s “Pillar of Fire”) fell briefly apart, and the last two also had poor tuning. At the Oct. 25 matinee, Michele Wiles and Cory Stearns built upon their already admirable performances in “Theme,” but the ballet as a whole had less excitement because the conductor David LaMarche allowed the tension to drop, especially in the finale.

In a presentation to the SPAC Board of Directors today, Ken Tabazhnick, the general manager for the NYCB residency program said the decision was made in light of the current economic climate.

The planned reduction is for one season only, Tabazhnick said.

There was no mention as to how the additional week in SPAC’s schedule will be filled, nor if the decision is permanent or if it will affect SPAC’s other flagship company, the Philadelphia Orchestra, which performs at SPAC for three weeks every August.

After several years of declining attendance, which has also been a trend for cultural institutions around the country, in 2008 the New York City Ballet and SPAC lost a combined $2.3 million on the SPAC program, according to SPAC officials. The move to a two-week program is expected to reduce that deficit by approximately $800,000.

BRB’s accounts of Fokine were honourable. In reviving Petrushka, John Auld has inspired his cast to emulate the vodka-fuelled revellers who crowd the square in front of St Petersburg’s Admiralty building, and I liked Alexander Campbell’s pathos as Petrushka, with James Grundy an ideally vain and mindless Moor.

The Firebird was also well done: the Royal Ballet staging has perfect lineage from Diaghilev, even to Tamara Karsavina’s coaching of Fonteyn as the Firebird, the creator passing on the role to another great artist. I enjoyed the beautiful ranks of the Enchanted Princesses, who threw and caught the golden apples with test match skill. These stagings preserved two essential works of art

Given Aspen Santa Fe's consistency, it came as little surprise that the program — the same one it plans to present in February during its fourth engagement at the Joyce Theater in New York City — was as big a hit as always.

With 10 superlative dancers bursting with polish and presence, this whiz-bang company can be counted on for performances packed with energy, athleticism and brio. Saturday was no exception.

It is an absolute sin that Tudor’s “Romeo and Juliet” has fallen out of repertory. Made in 1943 for American Ballet Theatre on Alicia Markova and Hugh Laing, this one act version uses music by Delius instead of the more familiar and bombastic Prokofiev. At this point, there’s some question, hotly and loudly debated, whether the Tudor can be fully recovered. ABT presented a short duet of Romeo’s farewell to Juliet. It wasn’t built to be a self-contained excerpt, but still, if the duet was any indication of the whole ballet’s quality, it’s exquisite.