A new logo features simply the name of the ballet in white against a black backdrop. A completely redone Web site includes blogs and Twitter feeds and, for the first time, allows ballet-goers to purchase tickets directly from the site, a move that allows the company to collect handling charges, rather than a third party such as Telecharge.

“The new Web site really is about social media, new media, the internet, and being connected and on the radar at different levels,” said executive director Barry Hughson, who described the old site as neither vibrant nor functional.

The metro area is about to lose its only professional dance company. The Rose Theater announced Tuesday that it plans to discontinue its Omaha Theater Ballet and School at the end of the 2009-10 season.

The demise of the company, known for its annual production of “The Nutcracker,” means neither Nebraska nor Iowa will have a full-time professional dance company. Missouri's Kansas City Ballet will be the closest professional ballet company. The decision will result in 14 lost jobs — 10 full-time professional dancers and four staffers. The ballet's season ends after the final production of “The Rainforest” on Feb. 21.

After months of planning, training, performing and working her body to its limits, Shanghai's most famous ballerina held court on her home stage last week, opening in San Francisco Ballet's repertory program and two performances of "Swan Lake." Tan, the company's principal dancer, a native of Shanghai who got her formative training here, was feeling the weight long before she took the stage. Her feet were tired.

"I definitely feel more pressure, because I know every time I come back, a lot of my former classmates and teachers will attend," said Tan.

It took four years of planning, four freight containers shipped across the Pacific Ocean and countless hours of sweat, determination and hard work, but the San Francisco Ballet finally brought its show to China.

In a series of performances that opened at the Shanghai Grand Theater on Sept. 22, the ballet wowed and perplexed ballet-goers with an eclectic selection of dance. The tour continues in Beijing this week, with an opening performance in the capital Thursday, the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

But he had a lot else on his mind, too: reshooting a dance film he made for Mikhail Baryshnikov, currently touring in theaters; training Natalie Portman for her role in Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky’s upcoming movie about ballerinas; and, at a pivotal point in his career, creating a lengthy new work for American Ballet Theater, Everything Doesn’t Happen at Once, which premieres Oct. 7 at Avery Fisher Hall. It will be his second commission for the company and a big opportunity to prove his critics wrong: No, he is not just a trendy item, stylish but insubstantial. He is for real.

“I haven’t even started rehearsing it yet,” he said about the ABT ballet back in August. “But I’ve been thinking about it for months.” He turned back to the smoke. “Do you smell that?” He stood up, tracing the odor to a room where a few dancers had recently left—Hurricane Bill was approaching that weekend, forcing several dancers to leave the island early (and Mr. Obama to arrive late). He jumped on a bed, pushing open the window behind its backboard. Exhausted, he collapsed then threw back his head: “It’s been a long summer; long, long, long, long …”

Last week, WW posted a letter from Oregon Ballet Theater historian Linda Besant and signed by 41 of the company’s 56 staff members, raising questions about OBT’s direction and slamming executive director Jon Ulsh.

The Board has now responded to Besant’s letter.

Bottom line: although Besant’s letter and the number of signatures attached suggest irreconcilable differences between OBT’s creative side, headed by artistic director Christopher Stowell, and the business side, headed by Ulsh, the board says it stands behind both men.

At the start of his fifth season in Seattle, Peter Boal can boast that PNB is on relatively solid financial ground in an era where other arts organizations are drastically downsizing. New work, including two commissions last year from acclaimed choreographer Twyla Tharp, has been very popular with audiences. And East Coast critics have been lavish in their praise of the company, helping to cement its national reputation. For his next five years with PNB, Peter Boal plans to celebrate the company's 40th anniversary with more new dances.

While the company lacks some of the bells and whistles of larger arts institutions, it more than makes up for this with its staff's professionalism and approachability. On Sunday, Artistic and executive director Celia Fushille gracefully floated across the front of the room, welcoming visitors and discussing last-minute rehearsal details with calming ease, and all of the dancers were neatly dressed, observant, smiling, and eager to attack the steps, even in a non-air conditioned studio on a scorching hot day. And it was so hot that I kept wiping my face with the only napkin I could find in my purse, one from my pizza lunch at Arizmendi. I'm sure those sitting next to me were wondering why the air smelled sweetly like asiago, garlic, and olive oil. Sorry, that was my forehead and not someone's lunch outside...

The afternoon consisted of three diverse ballets. Amy Seiwert's flirty world premiere "Soon These Two Worlds," set to selections from the Kronos Quartet's "Pieces of Africa," opened the rehearsal. There's a lot of group dancing, but Seiwert has created some intricately detailed duets, which smartly highlight her dancers' strengths. Smuin's "Medea," follows a storyline that trumps even the juiciest of the original "Melrose Place": there's love, lust, adultery, jealousy, rage, and mass murder. On Sunday, Susan Roemer's drama-queen Medea conveyed strength and a bald-Britney-wielding-a-baseball-bat-like craziness. True, I was saddened when she killed the Princess just steps from my feet, but minutes later, I was secretly rooting for her as Aaron Thayer's Jason met his demise. That debbie downer didn't last long, though, as the dancers took a short break and soon had me tapping my toes as they tossed their hats, twirled and waltzed across the floor, and strutted along to some of Frank Sinatra's best in Smuin's "Fly Me to the Moon."

"Plan for the next exciting thing and the next exciting thing and the next exciting thing," he said. "I've got to keep my programming exciting."

Exciting programming coupled with good marketing and advance planning are the keys to success in the non-profit arts.

This year's festival, produced by Ellen Dennis, adds to the ongoing centennial celebrations of the birth of the Ballets Russes. In 1909, Serge Diaghilev embarked on his career of shocking Paris with short-story ballets—poetic or exotic—that mated dancing with bold designs by contemporary artists and bold music by contemporary composers. A small showing devoted to the company graces the lobby (the material was drawn from Diaghilev's Theater of Marvels: The Ballets Russes and Its Aftermath, the stunning recent exhibit curated by Lynn Garafola that was on view at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts all summer). Each of the four FFD programs contains one work from the Ballets Russes repertory or a re-consideration of it.

Light was the dominant theme for the evening, used by two of the four choreographers to describe their work. Julie Job Smithson, a 10-year faculty member of the School of Richmond Ballet, started off the evening with the only work that actually used point shoes, which artistic director Stoner Winslett commented on with pleasure.

Each was challenged to create a 10to 15-minute work in about two weeks' time. The resulting program proved to be just over an hour of light-spirited, contemporary, and surprisingly unpredictable dancing.

This year's winner for institution is Pacific Northwest Ballet.

When PNB was looking for a new artistic director a few years ago, it made a genius move by hiring Peter Boal—an artist instead of an administrator, someone connected to the new work happening in New York and beyond. Boal has breathed new life into the city's ballet.