For the first time in the Joffrey's 53-year history, the acclaimed Chicago dance troupe will open its costume vault to the public for a sale later this month. More than 200 men's and women's costumes will go on sale Oct. 28.

Prices will start at $25.

A Long Beach native, Smith has more than 30 years' experience in the arts, primarily with ballet companies and visual arts and performance centers.

He comes to Sacramento from eight months as executive director of the Cerritos-based Friends of Arts Education at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, an organization that presents free arts programming, mostly to schoolchildren.

Jeans-clad, pigtailed dancers, their shirttails tied at the waist and moving to a Grand Ole Opry broadcast, signaled Thursday night that Alabama Ballet's "Night Dances" program was going to be a lighthearted affair.

The voice of country crooner Patsy Cline triggered a flood of nostalgia as it filled Hoover Library Theatre in Anne Mueller's "Heartaches and Hotcakes." Four dancers brought out the catharsis in songs like "There He Goes," "Lovin' in Vain," and "She's Got You," their innocence and naivete both a throwback and an escape.

"That was the first thing that I thought of," he chuckles. "Here are the two gay men and their son, the dancer. There are those stereotypes: `We're recruiting.' `Only gay men dance.' Things like that. I just find that incredibly funny. We didn't even push him in dance. We were thinking gymnastics because he was so flexible."

"Nobody's actually brought it up," shrugs Jones. "But if it happens, it happens. So be it."

Back to that in a minute. First, though, let it be said that it is true young James probably would not have joined the National Ballet School this year if Jones and Gibson hadn't adopted him seven years ago.

Their new Swan Lake, carefully reconstructed after the Petipa/Ivanov original by Gerard Charles of BalletMet and Victoria Morgan and Devon Carney of the Cincinnati Ballet, beautifully re-creates the magic that must have enchanted audiences at the drama's premiere more than 100 years ago.

The principals last night seemed well-cast (roles alternate). Carrie West successfully portrayed the shy, self-effacing Odette, Queen of the Swans. Her performance last night, however, seemed overly careful and hesitant. Zoica Tovar convinced as Odette's alter ego, Odile, in a bravura interpretation full of flash and fire.

--In order to maintain your right to certain dances, organizations such as the Balanchine Trust have to enforce copyright protection. If they don't complain to YouTube, for example, about the Kirov clips of Balanchine works that Ketinoa put up, they're at risk of copyright abandonment, which means that when a real risk comes along (such as did with the Martha Graham company under Ron Protas), they've relinquished their legal right to do anything.