Jose Mateo Ballet Theatre’s new program, the first of its 24th season, pairs two contrasting ballets about loss. One, the brand new “Over and Over,’’ catches the edgy tenor of the times. The other, 1991’s “Isle of the Dead,’’ is one of Mateo’s most unabashedly gorgeous works, a ballet that tempers the desolation of loss with hope.

Set to the brooding Rachmaninoff score of the same name, “Isle of the Dead’’ is full of romantic sweep and vivid, eye-catching patterns. Clothed in flesh-colored costumes, the 12 dancers ebb and flow like shifting grains of sand, their patterns marred only by sloppiness in timing and placement. As the work opens up, the full group winnows to three couples, led by Madeleine Bonn and Henoch Spinola. They dance a tempestuous duet full of spectacular lifts, often featuring Bonn splayed upside down over Spinola’s shoulder.

Diaghilev achieved all this with an improvised organisation that had no official headquarters for its first 10 years and, even more incredibly, no regular funding. He himself had no home and almost no possessions. He roamed the world with his manservant and a couple of suitcases, staying at expensive hotels (which he sometimes left without paying the bill).

Financial crises were the leitmotif of his life. He often teetered on the brink of ruin, and at least once he actually had to flee his creditors. Yet at the same time he was the feted guest of kings, noblemen and captains of industry.

When the company kicks off its season Friday at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, they do so without any of the new works or big classical productions that have generated excitement in recent years. MCB's budget is $11.2 million, down from $13.8 million last year. Eight dancers did not have their contracts renewed, leaving the company with 40 regular dancers, plus four student apprentices and two guest dancers.

``You have to face whatever is in front of you,'' says artistic director Edward Villella, sitting in his office at the troupe's Miami Beach home. ``What we are attempting to do is make prudent choices. That's what we have to do now. It's really up to the resources we have.''

While the Flying E is the perfect location for the company to live and enjoy the high Sonoran desert, professional dance studio space is not available on site. Conveniently located just across Highway 60 from the “E” is Benner-Nawman, a contract warehouse fulfillment business owned and operated by the Kientz family.

Ed Kientz, a Webb Center board member, learned of the need for a large rehearsal space and quickly offered to donate and rearrange a section of his facility to accommodate the temporary studio.

When Ms. Colker’s company was starting, the Brazilian dance establishment reacted to that approach with dismay and even a certain disdain. Tatiana Leskova, a lead dancer in the Original Ballet Russe who trained generations of ballerinas after arriving in Brazil in 1944, initially dismissed Ms. Colker’s pieces as “at best gymnastics,” though she later changed her mind and became a supporter.

But it was precisely the insouciance and playfulness of Ms. Colker’s work that led Cirque du Soleil to invite her to write, direct and choreograph a new show, “OVO,” commemorating that Canadian group’s 25th anniversary.

Becca Hirschman: How did you become involved in ballet?

Alonzo King: My mother was an amateur dancer and in university belonged to a dance group... and when I was a kid, she would show me movement. I loved the way she moved; she moved beautifully. The way she manipulated time seemed very magical to me. I could watch her for a long time, and so I admired that, you know, well I admired many things about her, but really the way she moved. And when she began to teach me, I loved it. It was a form of intimacy for us both, and I never left it alone.

The new Düsseldorf General Manager is obviously decided to lift the ballet-company to higher artistic standards. It now performs under the name ´Ballett am Rhein – Düsseldorf/Duisburg”. Among the members of the staff one discovers some of Schläpfer´s Mainz collaborators as well as that the roster of dancers has been considerably strengthened by former members of his Mainz troop. The whole company has been given a new, distinctly modern outlook, including the graphic outlay of the programmes. What I like less is the continuance of his Mainz fad to announce his programmes in numbers rather than listing them by their titles, only that he has changed what in Mainz had been Roman letters (I through XXVIII) to the now Düsseldorf spelling in Arabic numerals, with his first local premier advertised as b.01.

Omaha Theater Ballet is the state's only professional dance company. Thursday it will launch its farewell season. It will close after its final performance in February 2010.

"We're still in the very early stages," said dancer and choreographer Erika Overturff, one of Ballet Nebraska's organizers. "But we wanted to announce it now so people will know that ballet can have a future in Omaha. We didn't want our audiences coming to the theater with a heavy heart. We want this whole season to be a celebration of what Omaha Theater Ballet has done, and of what we hope Ballet Nebraska can do."

But the refurbished hall, which officially reopens on Nov. 5, is significant less for its physical changes than for its symbolism: It announces to the world that New York City Ballet and New York City Opera — despite a history of tensions and disagreements that initially threatened the project, and despite City Opera’s strained finances — have managed to move forward as roommates.

“Ballet and opera have some overlap in terms of what they need as art forms, but they also have some real differences,” said Kate D. Levin, cultural affairs commissioner for New York City. “The fact that they’ve been able to come to agreement on some fairly significant changes to the house is a really good sign.”

One of the big standard pieces in the ballet repertoire, this will be Nashville Ballet's fourth-ever Giselle, and the second under the direction of artistic director Paul Vasterling.

"It's a real challenge," says Vasterling, "especially since there is no available record of the original choreography." Under Vasterling's guidance, the production has been reworked by ballet masters Tim Yeager and Sharyn Wood to enhance the storytelling, with an eye toward exploiting the strength of the entire company.

It’s always exciting to attend the first performance of a new ballet season—especially one that showcases the efforts of a new artistic director. If only the results had equaled the anticipation.

Last weekend, Nevada Ballet Theatre began its 38th season with one familiar work, Balanchine’s Rubies, and two NBT premieres choreographed by Artistic Director James Canfield, Coco and Jungle. Rubies, set to Stravinsky’s “Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra,” is a ballet the company has performed before. Alissa Dale and Alexandra Christian repeated their assignments, layering new levels of sparkle and wit to their technically secure performances. Jeremy Bannon-Neches gave an impressively earnest performance as the male lead, but his serious demeanor did not mesh with either the choreographic or musical intent of the work.

Partnering pirouettes and pliés with the historical background of the Holocaust, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre created a month-long series of events titled, “Light / The Holocaust & Humanity Project,” to make sure that this infamous time in history is never forgotten.

By looking back at the Holocaust, Stephen Mills, the artistic director of Ballet Austin, hopes that people will “apply it ... and draw something out of it that is relevant to today.” The goal of the project is to educate people about this historic period, during which almost 6 million Jews and 11 million people in total perished, and to apply the lessons learned from it to issues that are relevant in today’s society.