ABT TO DO TUDOR’S ‘GALA PERFORMANCE’

American Ballet Theatre will offer a revival of Antony Tudor’s “Gala Performance” and the world premiere of a ballet by ABT principal dancer Clark Tippet during its Dec. 1-13 engagement at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, the company announced Wednesday.

Tudor, who was long associated with the New York company, was considered a seminal figure in 20th-Century dance and was widely credited with perfecting the psychological ballet, which probed the feelings and motivations of the characters. He died in New York on April 20, 1987.

His “Gala Performance” was created in 1938 for the London Ballet and received its ABT premiere in 1941. Set to music by Prokofiev (the first movement of the Piano Concerto No. 3 in C and the entire “Classical” Symphony), the comic work depicts three ballerinas’ preparations for a performance and the performance itself in which they attempt to win the audience’s favor by outdoing each other.

The ballet will be performed Dec. 11 as restaged by Hugh Laing and Sallie Wilson, scenery and costumes by Santo Loquasto.

Tippet’s ballet, “Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1,” is set to Max Bruch’s familiar concerto in G minor and is scheduled to be performed opening night Dec. 1. Costumes will be by Dain Marcus.

Tippet, 33, joined American Ballet Theatre in 1972 and became a principal dancer in 1976. His first effort as a choreographer, the ballet “Enough Said” (to music by George Perle), was presented at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles by members of ABT during the company’s engagement last March.

During its two weeks in Orange County, the New York company will present eight performances of Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s production of “The Sleeping Beauty,” which was premiered in Chicago in February, 1987, and eight programs of mixed repertory.

ABT also will dance Baryshnikov’s “The Nutcracker” Dec. 15-27 at the Shrine.