Credit guest Artistic Directors Michael Lowe (former Oakland principal dancer) and Jenna McClintock (still on the roster) for producing this valiant effort. True, the music was recorded Friday evening and the dancers, numbering 24, included visitors from Smuin Ballet. True, also, that everyone performed with uncommon commitment.

But was it enough? If the Oakland Ballet Company is to dance into a new era, someone must restock the larder with more substantial choreography than what one witnessed Friday. One recalls the extent to which Guidi challenged his dancers through reviving great ballets from the past and infusing the repertoire with contemporary creations. These "Jewels of the Bay," most of them performed by the company in an earlier era, often looked like paste.

The curtain opened on Saturday night with a comforting and familiar, business-as-usual, lukewarm performance of George Balanchine’s “Rubies.”

The second ballet of the evening, Canfield’s own witty “Coco,” quickly turned the temperature up to the level of a stimulating hot bath. And then the adventurous, inventive choreographer brought it up to full boil with the third dance, his abstract “Jungle,” set to the squelchy, splashy ambient techno music of Future Sound of London.

The evening began with “Three Virgins and a Devil,” the 1941 piece that made a name for Agnes de Mille as a choreographer. At first glance this is a medieval morality play, based upon a Giovanni Boccaccio story, but de Mille gives it the soul of a burlesque as a devil tempts three young women. Nikolaus Wourms scampered around as the dancing devil, with Amanda Abrahamson ruling the stage as the Fanatical One, Suzie Baer exhibiting a theatrical flair for facial expressions as the Greedy One and company newcomer Lisa Barrieau dancing the part of the Lustful One.

Take a famous title and hang a story on it? Hey, it worked for "An American in Paris," right? Matthew, a naive young painter, comes to fin de siècle Paris and falls for Nathalie, a spunky laundress who lands her dream job can-can-ing for the lech owner of that fabled hot spot, the Moulin Rouge. Before you can say "Giselle" -- unfortunately, it's much, much later than that -- there's a dead body and a broken heart.

Actually, for a ballet, that's plenty of plot. But apparently not enough for dramaturge Rick Skene, who piles on several unnecessary distractions (not one but two absinthe-fueled dream sequences, for example) that get in the way of the real purpose of the production, which is to thrust a few dozen members of this well-schooled company into a series of splashy can-can and tango showstoppers.

Here are the top 10 things the supernumeraries do while gathered in the background:

1) Indicate things by pointing at them.
2) Chat amongst themselves, but silently.
3) Twitter to indicate that something funny is happening.
4) Clutch themselves in horror.

Dance pioneer Bernadette Clements, established the Fort Walton Beach Ballet in 1969, which changed its name to the Northwest Florida Ballet in 1987.

“When people told me it was impossible, I think something inside me just clicked and I set out to prove that I could,” Clements said of her dream to start the NFB. “I think there is no doubt that we have proved that you can.”

He was immensely proud of Moira, who died in 2006, and their four children, Ailsa, Rachel, Fiona, and Alistair, who survive him.

This Milquetoast Don was ballet veteran Stephen Baranovics, and though I missed the glint of madness that can ignite the total performance, his alternate interpretation had consistency and gave some of his colleagues the chance to shine. Particularly attractive was Zachary Hackstock in the fop role of Gamache. His was a young fop - vigorous, vital and although still silly not unsexy. No girl's father needed to be unreasonably stupid to see in him a good son-in-law. In fact, the heroine Kirtri's dad, Lorenzo, was no mercenary ogre but just a practical parent with concerns - as Geoffrey Smith's forthright innkeeper made clear. What, though, of the ballet's dancing lovers - Kitri and Basilio?

This latest attempt to give the East Bay back what so many feel it deserves had much going for itself. For one thing, there were the dancers. Ballet dancers, from freelancers (Ikolo Griffin), former Oakland company members, current and former dancers with Smuin Ballet (Erin Yarbrough-Stewart, Aaron Thayer), Ballet San Jose (Amy Briones) and Sacramento Ballet (Nikki Trerise White) pitched in. The choreographers offered their works royalty-free. Except for Amy Seiwert's "Revealing the Bridge", the pieces from Alonzo King, Val Caniparoli, Carlos Carvajal and Michael Lowe, had been part of Oakland's repertoire. The opening night, in addition to long-time supporters brought in new, young audiences who at times seemed surprised at just how varied ballet can be. The stage of Holy Names' University's 300 seats Valley Center for the Arts was tiny, but seeing the dancers so close up brought its own rewards.

With the loss of four key dancers last year, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre found itself in a state of transition as it began its 40th anniversary season last weekend at the Benedum Center with that grande dame of all full-length ballets, "Sleeping Beauty."

This ballet, lovingly encased in David Walker's lavish sets, transports its audience back to a time during the 17th and 18th centuries, when a fairy tale could have been a reality. Coupled with Walker's luscious costumes, the fairies all gossamer and the aristocrats heavily bewigged and draped in luxurious fabrics, the PBT production was ornate as any that the company has offered over the years.

The performances on Friday and Saturday will feature two recent additions to the company’s repertoire, plus “Baker’s Dozen,” a dance masterpiece by Twyla Tharp. The two works created earlier this year, to celebrate choreographer Graham Lustig’s 10th anniversary as artistic director, are “Roses ’n Clover,” a tongue-in-cheek romp by choreographer Kirk Peterson, and Lustig’s own “Rhapsodia,” an expressive ballet set to an impassioned score for piano and orchestra by Rachmaninoff.

Lustig says he hopes ARB will make new friends in North Branch, who will then drive the short distance to see additional spring performances that the troupe has booked at Rutgers University’s New Theater. The company has reached an agreement with Raritan Valley Community College, which will co-present the ballet company twice a year for the next three seasons.

Which work do you wish you had written yourself?

Michel Fokine's Les Sylphides [first staged in 1909]. It's the most gorgeous dance in the world.

What's the best advice anyone ever gave you?

Choreographer Lar Lubovitch once said to me: "You're not going to start a dance company, are you?" It was a warning about how strange and difficult it would be. And that's true – but I like it.

There are two answers to this question. The first is the expense of filming, especially the extra wages demanded by performers and stage hands. The cost for filming one opera or ballet can exceed one million dollars, an amount that simply cannot be recouped with DVD sales after broadcast. When I ran the Royal Opera House we made a landmark deal with the artists that paid them a modest annual fee for a substantial amount of filming by the BBC. I hope we can make similar deals here in the United States.

The second reason, however, has to do with the unique nature of America's public television organization.