The latest star in a folk-rock dynasty is teaming up with Christopher Wheeldon's ballet company Morphoses for a free evening of dance tomorrow and Saturday at Central Park's SummerStage.

The point, says Wheeldon, is to bring ballet to people who haven't seen it before.

The RWB has announced that it will hold a Cancan Kickoff event in conjunction with the Out to Lunch series presented by the Winnipeg Downtown Biz. In the spirit of the company's season opener, Moulin Rouge -- The Ballet, the RWB is asking the Winnipeg community to participate in a huge cancan kick line for the event with the staff and 26 dancers of the RWB.

The Cancan Kickoff will be the first in a series of activities and events planned for the RWB's anniversary season, company officials say.

Robert Swinston, a member of the company for 29 years, served as Cunningham's assistant and will carry the torch during the next two years as the company embarks on a worldwide tour before stopping operations. Brandon Collwes has been a dancer with the company since January 2006. And Kristy Santimyer-Melita was the first local female dancer to make the Cunningham grade. She performed with MCDC for five years (1984-89), when she was seemingly the face of the company in reviews.

When Santimyer-Melita joined the ensemble, she was the beginning of a trend, a time when Cunningham "began choosing dancers who had a more ballet aesthetic. It was a real challenge and, frankly, a nice one," the former American Dance Ensemble ballerina recalled.

For those familiar with the NY dance scene, there are lotsa laffs in the Heel's brief sketches of the reviewers involved in running over innocent bystanders with the Welcome Wagon and the composition of the BalletTalk chatboard--"a NYCB-centric forum that celebrates all things Balanchine and counts no fewer than 1,000 experts on Balanchine’s every choreographic intent during his life and from his grave." How twue, how twue. Though there are a constellation of Veronika Part fans there, so much can be forgiven.

As a finalist in the Milwaukee Ballet's Genesis International Choreography Competition, 23-year old O'Donnell found himself pitted against 31-year-old established freelance choreographer Cameron McMillan and 42-year-old Maurice Causey, ballet master with Netherlands Dance Company.

"The way that they approached their work was what really interested me the most," O'Donnell says. "Cameron was always sitting there with the video camera, while Maurice would be listening to the music. I'm more a sort of wait-until-I-get-into-the-studio sort of person."

Its bankruptcy petition said Ballet Gamonet has more than 200 creditors, including subscription holders, dancers, musicians and artistic director Jimmy Gamonet De Los Heros. Among its listed personal property was $24,247 in ballet costumes.

The Miami-based company reported debt of $344,763 and assets of $40,262. President Zammy Migdal signed the petition.

The season opens with Giselle, featuring the Nashville Symphony, and running Friday, October 23 through Sunday, October 25 in TPAC's James K. Polk Theatre. Nutcracker, also with the Nashville Symphony, will be performed in Andrew Jackson Hall at TPAC, Friday, December 11-Sunday, December 20. American Originals, with country music star Hal Ketchum, plays the Polk Theatre from Friday, February 12-Sunday, February 14. The season concludes with A Midsummer Night's Dream, featuring the Nashville Symphony, at Jackson Hall, Friday, April 23-Sunday, April 25.

My personal disappointment over the first night of the Mariinsky’s Homage to Balanchine triple bill was their wilful decision to keep Alina Somova for evening two of Symphony in C. The much-vaunted, but also much-criticised new Mariinsky star was a hopeless Juliet earlier in their run – all flash and no feeling. And I’d been very curious to see if Balanchine’s grand but more emotionally neutral steps might allow her a spectacular atonement.

In the event, it was Uliana Lopatkina, the St Petersburg troupe’s grande dame, who stole the attention during this show-us-what-you’re-made-of piece for four partnered ballerinas. In her face, her carriage, the use of her long frame, there was a grave stateliness – a sense of performing as if to the manner born – that perfectly suited Balanchine’s treatment of the Bizet score. And particularly, quietly dazzling were those moments when, falling into partner Daniil Korsuntsev’s left, then right arm, she returned to standing straight with such measured grace that they might have been in zero gravity.

However, they looked sexy last night, and just so good in their Balanchine triple bill that you half wished they’d stop the Swan Lakes and Sleeping Beauties and dance only the Russian-born choreographer’s work. It’s as if Balanchine’s plotless ballets let the dancers be themselves, which is not swans and swains, but fit 20-somethings with energy and flair.

Vladimir Shklyarov was all this in Rubies, the middle work from Balanchine’s full-length Jewels that’s often performed in mixed bills. With floppy hair and easy manners, he’s the twinkle in the eye of Stravinsky’s music (Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra), although Irina Golub and Ekaterina Kondaurova hardly slouched. I should mention these two are only soloists, and the four men in the corps of even humbler rank, yet all had a panache you’d be pushed to find in more senior European dancers.

There's much to ponder in this modest addition to the year's many exhibits on the centennial of the Ballet Russe. For those not familiar with the Library of Congress let me say that its holdings are large but lumpy. Special collections which have come into the LoC's possession make it incredibly rich on certain topics but on related ones this institution may leave you as undernourished as the smallest branch of a remote public library. Unlike that branch, moreover, the LoC doesn't routinely participate in interlibrary exchange. Still, discoveries can be made in both the special collections and regular stacks - such as unpublished dance scores by name composers and historic information on ballet that appeared for some reason in a railroad magazine (perhaps the editor was a fan). From not precisely these yet from similar sources, Elizabeth Aldrich - this exhibit's organizer and the LoC's Curator of Dance - has put together a compact overview of Diaghilev's dance enterprise that throws light on the importance of balletic line and volumetric groupings in the Ballet Russe.

I, at least, was hoping to love them--wouldn't it have been neat to find, far away from any of our dance capitols, that something great was stirring? But the pieces they showcased suffered from the usual problem of mediocre art--that it doesn't join the general to the particular in any exciting or meaningful way. Everything was in outline. The dancers did fine, though, as long as they didn't have to go up on point (where they got stuck).

On being lead dancer, choreographer & director

Adam Cooper: The main problem is time. We only had four weeks’ rehearsal to get this whole show choreographed and taught to the company so it meant that I had to split my time unbelievably. I choreographed most of Act One in the week before rehearsals began, which meant that when the company joined us, my assistants could be teaching the company the main group dances and I could be doing principal rehearsals in another room. It’s not an easy job, but it’s one that I relish - although I hate it at the same time! It always feels like I can’t give everything 100%, which is what I like to do. But I wasn’t given the choice. I was told that was what I had to do so that’s what I did! And as I say, I relish it because I relish being in control and I relish being on the stage, so you kind of take the rough with the smooth and just get on with it!

The public cancan will begin a year of special events that includes the premiere of a new ballet, Moulin Rouge, choreographed by RWB dance instructor Jorden Morris.

The high-kicking cancan dance is closely associated with the Paris cabaret, which is the setting for the romantic and risqué new ballet. The Moulin Rouge club opened in 1889 and was a hub of bohemian Paris in the early 20th century.