Eighteen months ago, Pacific Northwest Ballet principal dancer Carla Körbes was set to make her debut as Juliette in Jean-Christophe Maillot's "Roméo et Juliette." It's the role a ballerina dreams of: a showcase of technique and an emotional journey rare in the ballet world. Just days before opening, Körbes suffered an injury and had to drop out of the cast. The ballet, in its Seattle premiere, was a huge success.

Now, with "Roméo et Juliette" returning to open PNB's new season, it seemed only right that Körbes would dance opening night, and the crowd at McCaw Hall was with her from the moment she ran onstage, a carefree teen happily teasing her nurse (witty Chalnessa Eames). And Körbes made the role her own: Her Juliette was a little more reserved than that of Noelani Pantastico last year; her dancing seemed to grow from a more quiet, reflective place.

The pool of water is lowered and converted to a shallow water surface at Plaza level. New technologies provide automated windspray sensors that adjust water pressure, height, and volume. Special nozzles and lighting systems allow for a multitude of special-effect water and light configurations. In terms of choreography, the fountain can create a wide range of water expressions from slow morphing geometric masses to fast paced chases. At night, the fountain is vibrantly illuminated with white light.

David Bintley’s latest piece for Birmingham Royal Ballet is far removed from the choreographer’s usual work but it was well received and an exciting addition to his company’s repertory.

The first section of E=mc2 is E for energy. Big and brooding, the limbs and twirling hands of the 20 dancers work as a giant machine building up its colossal power. Mass, the second movement, sees a shift of mood with lovely lifts and balances illustrating stillness, inertia and gravity, or defiance of it.

Rubies is one of Balanchine's most delectable creations, with dancers adorned in dazzling bejewelled costumes and set to the angular, jazz-tinged music of Igor Stravinsky.

Choreographed by William Forsythe, Workwithinwork is a new addition to Scottish Ballet's repertoire. Performed to the beautiful slow-building arch of Berio's Duetti for two violins, the choreography starts as graceful and winding movement, before branching out in ever-increasing complexity.

And former principal dancer Charlotte Talbot, who originally created the role of Cathy, has returned, this time working behind the scenes.

It's a ballet that is special to Charlotte in more ways than one. Not only did she get the chance to play one of literature's great romantic heroines, but she also met Claude-Michel, who became her husband.
“It's interesting for a dancer to go on the other side of the wall,” Charlotte says. “You have to know everything about the production - before I just had to know my part, but with this you have to deal with the bigger picture. When you re-stage the show you have to start from scratch and fit it all back together.”

We've now had a look at the letter written by Oregon Ballet Theatre's historian/lecturer/longtime volunteer Linda Besant and signed by a large number of OBT's administrative staff and dancers. Unlike what we previously reported, It has nothing to do with Christopher Stowell's performance as artistic director. He's mentioned once in passing. Instead, Besant's letter is an argument for replacing executive director Jon Ulsh.

Her argument starts by reviewing the company's problems in the spring: "To my analysis, the deepest areas of concern were an inadequately functioning board; lack of concrete planning, both immediate and long-range; and poorly run development efforts. I could not help but face the fact that in management of a non-profit of this size, these areas are the direct responsibility or the supervisory responsibility of the executive director."

Orlando Ballet's request was for $100,000 to pay for scholarships for its 2010 "summer intensive" program, which attracts students from around the world.

"It's a blow financially," said Juan Escalante, the group's new executive director, who said the company would seek other funding sources. "As a dance company, you always have to have a Plan B."

First up was Boston Ballet's uber-correct reconstruction of Nijinsky's "Afternoon of a Faun" in honor of the 100th anniversary of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballet Russes. Beyond daring in 1912 (remember, ladies were barely revealing their ankles at the turn of the century), the stilted, pseudo-Grecian stylization of carnal lust in "Afternoon of a Faun" remains astonishingly powerful. The faun, (the gamine-like Altankhuyag Dugaraa), languishes in a sexually charged stupor -- at least, until the nymphs show up, resplendent in their Bakst originals. Then, Dugaraa comes alive, crouching and preening behind the women with a boyish playfulness that switches to all business when he chooses his favorite. As he faces the Nymph and strikes his flattened palms downwards towards her, she kneels slowly, transfixed with desire. They barely touch, but it's incredibly erotic -- a radical notion in this era of anything goes.

It's not about fusing technique; they don't copy each others' steps. It's more like they're inhaling the same air, and their breath mingles. By the last of the dance's nine sections, when they're all metaphorically in the “upper room” of their physicality, you're breathing the rare air with them.

Houston Ballet's dancers, unfamiliar until now with Tharp's grounded style, attacked the piece confidently and handled the demands reasonably well. Some were stellar: As the lead stompers, Kelly Mynernick dazzled with clean, muscular swagger and Jessica Collado charmed with girl-next-door vibrance. In the ballerina group, Emily Bowen knocked me silly; she was utterly fearless, spectacularly sharp.

Gates moved to Laguna in 2004 with the determination to start a festival as soon as possible. "I'm not sure Orange County can support a major dance company at this point; maybe in the future. But what people can support is an annual festival that brings in great dance on the right scale. I knew it would find an audience."

Gates is uniquely positioned to do just that. The former Joffrey Ballet star, now a dance professor at the University of California, Irvine, spends much of her time teaching the works of German-based American William Forsythe, one of the most respected choreographers of his generation, to ballet companies throughout the world.

It takes a lot of nerve to start a dance company in the middle of an economic downturn, but Wil McKnight is one nervy dancer. His troupe, Texas Dance Theatre, presented the first program of its first season Friday at Scott Theatre. Nine dancers presented a provocative program of four new contemporary ballets, three of them world premieres.

The ideas driving each work peeked through, but onstage execution was lacking.

The subtitle of the Morphoses troupe is the Wheeldon Company. But in this program it performed “Softly as I Leave You,” choreographed not by Christopher Wheeldon but by the husband-and-wife team Lightfoot León (Paul Lightfoot and Sol Léon), which did a great deal to confirm my worst misgivings about Morphoses itself. “Softly as I Leave You” was a repulsive piece featuring most of the worst clichés of European postwar choreography.

The music was fluent adagio by Bach and Arvo Pärt, so the two dancers thrashed and flailed hard and sharp against it. Drew Jacoby began by showing us how she could writhe inside a narrow box; Rubinald Pronk did a perfect impersonation of the performing manner of Jorge Donn (for many years the leading light of Maurice Béjart’s Ballet of the 20th Century), especially in the reverential way in which he pressed his cheek to the floor while presenting his face glamorously to the audience. Both suggested that Dance = Torment and that they come from a land where nobody has ever been either happy or sincere.

On the company » "The company is strong from top to bottom, with a group of talented youngsters coming up from Ballet West II. I try to encourage and promote from within, while welcoming the best dancers from around the world at the same time; I think both are important. We are fortunate to have guest principal dancer Sarah Webb from Houston Ballet again to open the season, and through the gala. We have four principals (Christopher Ruud, Christiana Bennett, Romi Beppu, Michael Bearden), five soloists, four demi-soloists and 32 corps de ballet members."

While we're in comparison mode, let me say that Olivier Wevers as the haunted Friar Laurence was even more visually interesting and compellingly scary than last time (which is saying a lot!) and Jonathan Porretta is even more technically clean, physically vulgar, and fun to watch than last time (ditto). Chalnessa Eames' portrayal of the Nurse gave me a new sense of some of the stranger movements. (My favorite was in Act I, when, with just a waggling finger, she seems to run through the gamut of "You come here right this minute, young lady!" to "Please come here, poppet, and Nursey will give you a treat.") I missed the multi-dimensionality of Louise Nadeau's Lady Capulet (which might have been increased by the way the sharp angles of the role fit onto her delicate, rounded style?) but enjoyed the striking lines of Ariana Lallone's long, black-clad limbs. Stanko Milov packed about as much substance as you can into the role of Paris, making him more than just a plot element. Josh Spell turned in a clean performance of Benvolio. Batkhurel Bold was a strong, noble Tybalt; that's what the movement seems to call for; the story, I think, works better if he's more of a flashy bully.