Brought in as a guest choreographer for Scottish Ballet, and charged with redesigning Stravinsky’s Petrushka for the company’s big Edinburgh Festival show, Spink has set the story in 1990s Russia. He wanted to get away from the traditional treatment of ballet towards something “much more anarchic and rough around the edges”.

"Seventeen years ago, we contacted the John Cranko Foundation to stage the work in Korea, but being a lesser-known ballet troupe at the time, the foundation refused our request," Julia H. Moon, the general director of UBC, said at a press conference last week in Seoul. "After touring North America and Europe, the UBC garnered fans among ballet lovers, and we finally were given the permission to stage `Onegin' in Korea."

Cincinnati Ballet is one of just six companies in the nation that continues to dance with an orchestra. But unless supporters can raise enough extra money, the violinists, trumpeters and clarinetists who accompany the dancers from the orchestra pit could be replaced by recordings.

And this year, when Cincinnati Ballet has lost funding from the Ohio Arts Council, city of Cincinnati and $100,000 from the Fine Arts Fund because of the economic downturn, raising enough cash to pay the players is even more critical.