Tulsa Ballet performances this weekend

Friday, November 8th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Tulsa Ballet will present a program of three contemporary one-act works at the Performing Arts Center this weekend. The company received high praise from European audiences and critics during its recent appearance at an international arts festival in Portugal.

They hope more of the home crowd will go see why the dance world is talking about Tulsa Ballet. News on Six anchor Glenda Silvey reports. Tulsa Ballet's fall program includes an American premiere by one of the world's leading new choreographers, Nacho Duato of Spain.

"Duende" is Duato's fifth work for the company, and Tulsa audiences seem to love the intense and challenging contemporary movement. Duatos works have no story line, but Tulsa Ballet Artistic Director Marcello Angelini says they reach audiences at the gut level. "You look at them and they speak to you but without a clear message. It's almost like they hit you on your unconscious level."

Angelini says Duato is the world's leading choreographer in creating a new way of moving dancers' bodies to express human emotion. Alexandra Bergman, Dancer: "It just takes a lot more practice for someone who's classically trained." Dancers say Duato's contemporary movement challenges their brains and muscles, but they love performing his works. "They're so musical and the steps are so strategically placed with the music that you feel you've completely danced the ballet when you're finished."

While all arts groups struggle in the current economy, Angelini says Tulsa Ballet is maintaining, while not growing its two-point-nine million-dollar budget, or ticket sales. He says it's crucial to the city that the arts not only survive, but also flourish. "The moment the arts lose the quality that is intrinsic to them, then Tulsa will lose the quality as a city that it has right now."

The program includes a traditional and one other contemporary ballet, reflecting Angelini's belief in exposing Tulsa audiences to new works. He says the responsibility of the arts encompasses more than entertainment, they must lead the cultural life of the city. "If we stay stale, if we don't challenge as well as entertain our audience, the cultural level of the city is going to stay exactly what it is." Angelini says he's committed to showing Oklahoma the works that are fundamental to the growth of dance, and those being seen worldwide.

He hopes more people will come take a look. Tulsa Ballet's program, called "Legends of the Fall," will be performed this weekend at the Performing Arts Center.