The festival, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers arose, opens on October 12 with ballets staged by well-known American ballet dancer, choreographer, and director John Neumeier in the Alexandrinsky Theater.

RS: So even though your work doesn’t look much like traditional ballet, you are still, in a sense, engaged in a dialogue with its constituents?

WF: Well, part of the instigation for all of this was Balanchine. We inherited a significant dilemma in so far as Balanchine provided paradigmatic examples of musical interpretation through his sublime musicality and expertise.

At the start of my career, in Stuttgart, it was imperative that I used the orchestra, and I made ballets to Handel, to Bach, to Penderecki, Hans Werner Henze. I was fortunate to have that situation and I worked my craft according to those conditions. When I began to work in Frankfurt, it became clear to me the orchestra would never rehearse our work enough to provide the kind of excellent musicianship I wanted, so I distanced myself from that. And if one acknowledged that one didn’t have exactly the same skills as Balanchine, where would the function of musicality reside, and how would it express itself for other choreographers?

But it is academic dance, and it's not just a pun to say there are principles of academic freedom involved. Is Ketinoa's channel protected under principles of academic freedom? Or rather, should it be? The dance world has languished so long without libraries, and the rise of video was just beginning to allow dance to be studied like literature, so you could study it and quote accurately, and the autodidact or amateur outside the academy was becoming almost as well informed as some professors. Though it was happening outside a university setting, the growth of serious dance culture was happening in the West rather like the scientific societies of the 18th century, when professional procedures had not yet been codified but people were making collections and study was becoming possible on an unprecedented scale -- and Ketinoa's channel was at the top of the heap for providing the core commentaries and syllabi.

Kershaw was an amazing force in Seattle. He built a massive oevure combining good intonation with a dynamic leadership that led to bold, idiomatic performances by the orchestra.

Part of the audience's enjoyment certainly was the way Kershaw lent musical scores his own brand of magic. A critic said of the ballet's premiere of "Romeo et Juliet": "Music director and orchestra conductor Stewart Kershaw took Prokofiev's score and delivered a flawless performance that matched beautifully with the grace of the dancers."

Charles Barker is the new music director and conductor of Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre. His three-year contract begins with weekend performances of "The Sleeping Beauty," which opens the company's 40th season. Barker's previous performances with the ballet include "Romeo and Juliet" and "Cinderella" during the 2008-09 season

In addition to performing responsibilities, Barker will handle all aspects of managing the ballet orchestra, including auditions. He'll also work closely with the ballet's artistic director Terrence S. Orr in planning productions.

Any advice for young dancers who dream of becoming great ballerinas? What does it take? What do you have to give up?

As you go on in life studying ballet for many years, you forget what first attracted you. Many dancers begin to feel noble simply because they come to class at all, when since they chose to dance, they should have this wonderful feeling unlike anything else in life: the state of balletic grace. And I caution my dancers and students alike not to focus on being a star or to demand the star treatment, but to remember the stars they had in their eyes that made them want to dance in the first place. As you become experienced and perfect the technique, you have to remain vulnerable and not lose that wonderful innocence, that freshness. [Otherwise] you can express the ballet technically well — but not necessarily very poetically.

Verb Ballets is in the movement business. But the Cleveland dance company is also in the moving business, as was clear from its program Saturday at St. Ignatius High School's new Breen Center for the Performing Arts, a fine venue for dance.

Verb shaped the occasion as a terpsichorean travelogue, offering eight works to survey the art of modern dance since 1930. Presented in chronological order, the program found Verb moving from style to style as if the dancers were eager to immerse themselves in something different.

Several people have asked me whether OBT's board of directors made a good move by parting company with Ulsh.

Frankly, I have no idea, because what I know of how Ulsh conducted business at the company is limited and anecdotal. Was he a good manager of the resources that came his way? Was he a good hunter for new resources? Did he consult widely within his community, take good advice, earn consent for new initiatives? Could he rightfully say, "I am a river to my people," to quote my favorite line from "Lawrence of Arabia"? It would take a lot more investigative time for me to come to any conclusion, and even then I would be skeptical of my research. These are hard things to pin down.