According to the brochure that was stuck in my program, the Colorado Ballet's 2009-2010 season will follow the same format as the 2008-2009 season: triple bills as book-ends and 2 full-length ballets surrounding The Nutcracker. The scheduling is a little better. with several weeks between programs rather than 2 programs run together, as A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Repertory Series were.

The opening triple bill will consist of Great Galloping Gottschalk, some assorted solos and pas de deux, and Rodeo. The Fall full-length ballet will be Don Quixote. The Spring full-length program will be Beauty and the Beast, which will be followed by the final triple bill consisting of a new work by Brain, errr, Brian Reeder, Anthony Tudor's Echoing or Trumpets, and Celts

The Colorado Ballet staged a little "appetizer" on Friday (8/21) at the Arvada Center, an arts complex in the northwest 'burbs which has an outdoor theatre with probably 6-700 seats backed by lawn seating with room for several hundred. The program consisted mostly of solos and duets, highlighted by the "white swan" pas de deux and Antony Tudor's Leaves are Falling (and included a couple of works by members of the company), but for a finale they re-staged Amy Seiwart's Things Left Unsaid which had been part of last season's The Repertory Series. Things Left Unsaid, is subtle and understated, as would be expected for a piece set to Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words, and was somewhat lost between the two very intense works that surrounded it (Feast of the Gods and The Upper Room). But when presented as the featured piece of the evening, it came across to me (and apparently to a lot of other people, as it got a standing ovation) as a very strong work, certainly capable of being the centerpiece of a show and one that really engages the brain. To actually describe the work would take someone more knowledgeable about dance than I, and alas it seems like I'm the only Denver poster left.

I see that they have Dwight Rhoden's Ave Maria scheduled instead of the "assorted solos and pas de deux" in the season-opening program. I don't know if I confused the announcement for this program with the announcement for the Aug. 21 program or if they changed the line-up.