DANCE REVIEW : ‘Beauty’ Stand-Ins Pick Up Where Dunham Fell Off

For an Aurora, there are some fates worse than merely sleeping for 100 years.

Thursday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa, American Ballet Theatre soloist Christine Dunham danced for the first time the daunting title role in “The Sleeping Beauty.” And for a few moments her performance seemed close to a dream debut.

The little entrance solo was engagingly fleet and ebullient, the early portions of the treacherous Rose Adagio highly promising for the evenness of Dunham’s articulation of steps, her generous balances and secure sense of classical style.

Then disaster. Just before the last of the grueling promenades en attitude (supported turns on pointe), Dunham’s working leg seemed to buckle under her and she pitched forward, spraining her ankle. She managed to dance the rest of Act I but could not continue in the ballet. (Friday morning, a company spokesperson said Dunham would be out for two to three weeks).

Backstage and in Segerstrom Hall were other dancers who had appeared as Aurora during the local Ballet Theatre season, but none had rehearsed the role with Dunham’s scheduled partner, Ricardo Bustamante (who had yet to make his first entrance in the ballet).

Consequently, after an unusually long intermission, company management announced both a new Sleeping Beauty and a substitute Prince Charming: Cheryl Yeager and Julio Bocca, a familiar team previously reviewed in this ballet. They met this emergency assignment with impeccable professionalism.