The Beijing run, to take place from Nov. 12 to Nov. 15, will include four performances of the full-length ballet “Don Quixote,” staged by Susan Jones and Kevin McKenzie, the company’s artistic director, and two repertory programs, including works by the company’s artist in residence, Alexei Ratmanksy, as well as dances by Aszure Barton and Benjamin Millepied. (At right, the company’s Misty Copeland and Carlos Lopez.)

Connolly is a patron of Argyll-based Ballet West, which has developed the BA in collaboration with UHI, which has its headquarters in Inverness. The education institution is working towards gaining full university status.

Connolly became involved with Ballet West after they choreographed dance scenes in the 1997 film Mrs Brown, in which he starred. The film centred around Queen Victoria's later years at Balmoral Castle, near Braemar in Aberdeenshire.

Mr. Cooper is at best a competent choreographer; his chief asset has always been his own magnetic stage personality. Tall and muscular, with bushy eyebrows, a brooding stare and a suggestion of devilish rock-star glamour, he could be counted on to liven up the sometimes dull performances of his Royal Ballet peers.

But although Mr. Cooper is the central character in “Shall We Dance” — he never seems to leave the stage — that intriguing devilry and charisma seem to have disappeared. From his first appearance alone onstage on a moving platform, all chiseled jaw and macho ennui, he looks like nothing so much as a Ken doll in search of his perfect Barbie.

Last seen in Edinburgh in 2007 in a staging of William Forsythe’s Impressing the Czar, the Royal Ballet of Flanders is back at the official festival in The Return of Ulysses. Christian Spuck’s full-length ballet is considerably less monumental than the Forsythe, but at times similarly tongue in cheek. Its centrepiece is Penelope, the Queen of Ithaca and the ever-faithful wife of Ulysses. For 20 years her husband has been away fighting the Trojan War. Patiently she waits for him, fending off a clutch of vigorous suitors (108 in Homer’s tale, here reduced to a more manageable seven) eager to seize both her and the kingdom.

That sense of staleness is emphasised by the fact that Spuck, the resident choreographer with Stuttgart Ballet, has been all too clearly influenced by those contemporary Euro dance darlings Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker (agonised writhing, semi-darkness), William Forsythe (a gold-suited god with a megaphone, hyper-extensions for a practice-clothed corps de ballet), and Pina Bausch (metronomic repeated movements to Forties’ songs).

Born in Paris of Russian parentage on January 13 1939, André Prokovsky trained there with the Russian émigré teachers who formed a world-renowned training hub in Paris after the Russian Revolution. In his teens he danced briefly with the coming men of French ballet, Roland Petit and Jean Babilée, before winning a silver medal at the 1957 Moscow World Youth Festival.

For the past four years The AB has been celebrating the Ballet Russes and its influence on the development of ballet and modern dance in Australia. Many recent seasons have included new interpretations of works that were originally from the Ballet Russes period (Graeme Murphy's Firebird, Krzysztof Pastor's Symphonie Fantastique) or direct recreations of dances made by choreographers involved with the Ballet Russes (Leonide Massine's Les Presage, Vaslav Nijinsky's Le Spectre de la Rose).

In the spirit of the inventiveness and innovations within ballet during the era of the Ballet Russes, Concord features, according to artistic director David McAllister, "three of the most important choreographers working today" who are creating works that "will boldly take us forward into the future." While there is truth to this statement, Concord's main distinction is its variety, which, whether one likes the works or not, shows the incredible versatility and physical abilities of the dancers themselves. That they can jump from contemporary dance to comic ballet to post modern choreography within the space of two 20 minute intervals and perform each style confidently is quite extraordinary.

The highlight was Nacho Duato's Por vos muero, a work that entered the company's repertoire a decade ago. Ingenious and deceptively artless, it condenses the cultural essence of Spain's Golden Age into a fluid series of poetic vignettes that fuse melancholy, euphoria, beauty and joy. Courtly banquets, dances and lovers' trysts are set alongside peasant folk celebrations and religious ritual.

Instantly theatrical, a curtain rise reveals a chorus of ghostly figures slowly walking upstage towards a shadowy, sepulchral set while a mellifluous Spanish voiceover recites Garcilaso de la Vega's tragic love poetry. The dancers reappear from the mists of time in colourful, renaissance-inspired costumes, the set now bathed in warm lighting, revealing luxuriously draped red curtains and textured panels.