Balanchine Bonanza

The late choreographer's "Tarantella Pas de Deux" will be a highlight of the Ballet Tucson fall concert, Dance and Art 2000. (See accompanying story for Ballet Arizona's Balanchine.) For the "Tarantella," artistic director Mary Beth Cabana is importing two out-of-town professionals, Karen Gabay and Raymond Rodriguez, both of Cleveland San Jose Ballet.

In the five other works, all by local choreographers, Ballet Tucson will deploy its own dancers, a combination of adult pros and advanced students. This being a dance and art concert, the dancers will pirouette in between artworks contributed by four Tucson artists.

Steven Derks' found-object sculptures will form a focal point for Cabana's "Mendelssohn Piano Concerto No. 1," a neoclassical ballet. Chieko Imada, who recently danced in the Tenth Street Danceworks Reid Park concert, here appears in her own composition, the brand-new "Hibiki (Echo)," danced to Japanese kodo drums. Georgia Schwartz's abstractions are the art entry. Both Schwartz's and Derks' art will be part of "In Paradisium/ Doves," a spiritual ballet by Cabana and Jeffrey Hughes.

Mural artist Pasqualina Azzarello, who's currently hard at work on the Stone Avenue public art project, contributes her streetsmart work to "Urban Study," a piece by Mark Schneider and Joe Tremaine that melds hip hop and jazz dance. Mia Hansen, formerly of Up with People, choreographed "Step Right Up," a dance-theatre circus piece that riffs on the cheerful paintings of Craig Clements.