
DATE: Wednesday, May 7, 1997                TAG: 9705070030

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LIZ SZABO, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:  113 lines

BALANCHINE ACT VIRGINIA BALLET THEATER FOES FOR THE BIG TIME WITH RARE PERFORMANCE OF CHOREOGRAPHER'S CHALLENGING WORK

THEY SIT on the cold, clammy floor of a stiflingly hot dance studio, stuffing bare, bandaged feet into pointe shoes whose pink satin has worn away to a dull gray.

The dancers of the Virginia Ballet Theater - some of whom are students no older than 15 - have been practicing for weeks. It has not always gone well. They are about to listen to a pep talk from ballet co-director Janina Bove, urging them to put yesterday's rehearsal - dubbed ``Black Tuesday'' - behind them.

``We're hard on them,'' Bove explains. ``They're hard on themselves. . . After yesterday, we were all ready to cry.''

The company has only a few days left before its performances during the Virginia Waterfront International Arts Festival. They'll perform Thursday at the Harrison Opera House in Norfolk and Friday at the Virginia Beach Pavilion Theatre.

The dancers have been trying to perfect the steps to choreographer George Balanchine's ``Serenade,'' a challenging work that none have danced before. If they don't get it right, they will not get the chance to dance it again. Earning the privilege of performing a Balanchine ballet - whose copyrights are tightly protected by the George Balanchine Trust - took six months of applications.

Not to mention years spent building the national recognition required just to be considered.

``Doing `Serenade' really validates all the work we've done,'' said director Frank Bove. ``It's comparable to the Virginia Opera performing `Pagliacci.' If you want to be a professional, you have to do challenging work.''

Balanchine, who founded the New York City Ballet, is widely considered the greatest modern choreographer. His trust allows only a small, exclusive circle of ballet companies to perform his works, which have their own unique neo-classical style, their own specific costumes, lighting, steps and music. In classical ballet, a dancer performs with her body straight up and down. In a Balanchine production, she might be upside-down or at a slant, he said.

``Balanchine loved women, and he really shows them off in his ballets,'' Frank Bove said. ``The steps and the music fit together so well, you almost couldn't imagine any other steps for that music.''

``Serenade,'' which was designed for students, also shows off Balanchine's quirkiness. In practice, a dancer might arrive late to class and race into place beside her classmates in mid-step. She might fall or miss a step. Balanchine incorporated those moments into his ballet.

Even in Balanchine ballets performed today, ``there are places where you'll see someone just rush in, or someone falls,'' Bove said.

Much of the credit for VBT's success in winning the Balanchine rights goes to artistic adviser Lorraine Graves, a veteran of Dance Theater of Harlem who has danced many Balanchine ballets. As dance mistress for Dance Theater of Harlem, Graves was responsible for knowing every part in the production. Now, in the final days before the debut, she is going over every detail to ensure that VBT perform ``Serenade'' exactly as Balanchine intended.

Winning permission to perform ``Serenade'' signals that VBT has finally arrived, Bove said. Although the school has existed under different names for four decades, it was only last fall that the theater hired professional dancers.

But VBT still needs to prove itself. Victoria Simons, an experienced choreographer from the Balanchine Trust, visits from New York periodically to instruct the dancers and assess their performances.

``We're so lucky to have Lorraine here, because Vicki could have pulled the plug at anytime. She could have said, `Forget it, you're not ready,' '' Bove said. ``We have to perform a certain way if we ever want to get another Balanchine.''

And Bove does want to perform another Balanchine. As well as an Agnes DeMille.

Bove is already planning another major milestone - VBT's production of modernist composer Igor Stravinsky's ``The Firebird'' next fall.

Indeed, Bove has VBT's future mapped out through the next century.

By 2000, VBT will be ready to perform a full-length ballet, such as ``Swan Lake.'' It will perform a 27- or 30-week season, which will allow VBT to tour and book longer performances in other cities. And Bove hopes to more than double VBT's budget, boosting it from this year's $200,000 budget to $500,000. If VBT continues to grow the way it has recently, that shouldn't be hard. Its budget has doubled since last year.

The VBT's program for the arts festival shows how far the company has come. In addition to ``Serenade,'' VBT also will perform ``Heyoka'' by Erick Hawkins, ``The Abyss'' by Stuart Hodes, and ``By George,'' a light piece choreographed by Bove to the music of George Gershwin.

``This is the kind of program you could see in New York,'' Bove said.

A professional ballet company is the ``last jewel in the crown'' in the arts community of Hampton Roads, which is already known for its opera, symphony and art museum.

Building that kind of world-class company takes time.

``You don't become a big-time dance company by dancing one work,'' Bove said. ``This is a step for us. But it's a step that makes all the other steps possible.''

In the meantime, Graves is holding her dancers to the highest standards. Even if that occasionally wears them out. Her students think of her, she said, as ``beyond a taskmaster.''

``Some of them are sick of me right now,'' Graves said. ``But they're getting a taste of the real world.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

HUY NGUYEN/The Virginian-Pilot

From left to right, Lorraine Graves, Todd Rosenlieb, Kathy Brenner

and Katheryn Finney take notes during the Virginia Ballet Theater's

rehearsal of Balanchine's ``Serenade.''

GEORGES BALANCHINE

Graphic

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[For complete graphic, please see microfilm] KEYWORDS: THE VIRGINIA WATERFRONT INTERNATIONAL ARTS FESTIVAL

DANCE BALLET