3 County Ballet Companies to Merge, Pool Resources

Three Orange County-based ballet companies, including one led by a veteran of Mikhail Baryshnikov’s American Ballet Theatre, are merging in an effort to raise the quality, scope and number of their productions and to mount a major fund-raising drive.

“This will give us access to an exchange of talent and to a potentially wider base of support,” said UC Irvine ballet instructor Lawrence Rosenberg, the driving force behind the merger. Rosenberg, 37, will become artistic co-director of the new company, to be called South Coast Ballet after one of the participating troupes.

By pooling their resources, the companies hope not only to attract a broader audience within the county but also to develop a series of regional Southland bookings, Rosenberg said.

The three companies are:

Ballet Repertory, which was formed in 1981 under a different name--Capistrano Ballet--by Rosenberg, a former member of the Eliot Feld Ballet in New York, and his wife, Sarma. She will be co-director and choreographer of the new company. Ballet Rep is based, with its private training school, in San Juan Capistrano.

The South Coast Ballet, a small troupe formed in Costa Mesa in 1981 by James Jones, also a UC Irvine ballet instructor, who resigned as the troupe’s artistic director last July and left its future in doubt. Jones will not be involved in the new company.

The Emerson Dance Theatre, an informal group of ABT dancers organized for off-season showcases three years ago in Yorba Linda by Orange County native Melissa Allen, 22, a six-year veteran of the prestigious New York company.

In a telephone interview from New York, Allen, who will be associate director of the South Coast Ballet, said she already has spoken with several ABT dancers who are willing to be part of the new venture during ABT’s off-season “because they would like to work in a smaller atmosphere in California.” She would not disclose their names.

“I have this gut feeling that ballet in California is going to take off, and I want to be there to help it grow,” she said.

Allen, who was born in Santa Ana and grew up in Dana Point, became the youngest member of the ABT corps de ballet in 1981 at the age of 15 when artistic director Mikhail Baryshnikov plucked her out of a class at Stanley Holden’s ballet studio in Los Angeles. She will be dancing at the Orange County Performing Arts Center next week as part of ABT’s current tour.

Notwithstanding her optimistic view about the future of ballet in Southern California, Allen is less than sanguine about the prospects for raising the funds needed to establish a highly visible, locally based professional company.

“You almost have to bleed people,” she said. “You have to plead and beg for the money. And yet some of the most talented people in ballet come from California. It’s a shame so many have to go away to be trained.”

Allen said she is excited, though, by the prospect that the new South Coast Ballet venture will be associated with a training school. She has given master classes at the Rosenbergs’ Capistrano Ballet Center, a short drive from her San Clemente home.

“I found Larry and Sarma doing an amazing job there,” Allen said. “They are turning out a number of wonderful dancers. They’re training them like they should be.”

The Rosenbergs, who received their own training with Eugene Loring at the American School of Dance in Hollywood and with Tatiana Riabouchinska in Beverly Hills, plan to invite their best students into the new company’s corps de ballet.

Many already have appeared on stage with Ballet Repertory, a troupe of about two dozen professional and amateur dancers. Some are appearing today in “The Nutcracker: A Journey to Candyland” at Orange Coast College.

The budget for the new South Coast Ballet has yet to be determined. Both the Rosenbergs and Allen say the company would be well-launched with $75,000. Steven Rabago, a Newport Beach businessman who will be chairman of the board of the newly merged ballet company, foresees raising at least $30,000 through local donations and grants.

“We raised that amount for the old South Coast Ballet,” said Rabago, 32, “and that was just from benevolent handouts. I would hope we could raise more than that with increased numbers of performances and more ticket sales. If we perform regionally, those numbers might grow significantly.”

Indeed, they will have to if the new company is to have a realistic chance of success. When Allen presented her Emerson Dance Theatre showcases, the ABT performers were not paid.

“That isn’t right,” she said. “Professional dancers need to be paid, and for something like this to work, it must be professional.”

Ballet Repertory will present “The Nutcracker: A Journey to Candyland” at Orange Coast College’s Robert B. Moore Theatre, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa, today at 2 and 7:30 p.m. Admission: $3 to $4. Information: (714) 432-5880.