Dance

- The San Diego Foundation for the Performing Arts, a major local presenter of world-class dance, is teaming up with the San Diego Area Dance Alliance to help showcase concerts by six of San Diego’s leading dance companies.

This cooperative effort will get off the ground with two weekends of modern dance concerts by Three’s Company and Dancers, slated for Jan. 8, 9, 15 and 16 at UC San Diego’s Mandell Weiss Center for the Performing Arts.

Also included on the varied slate are concerts by San Diego Dance Theatre and Stage Seven Dance Theatre in February, Jazz Unlimited’s April performances at the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, California Ballet’s 20th anniversary gala at the Civic Theatre, and the American Ballet Ensemble’s concert at City College, both scheduled for May.

- Friends of the Performing Arts, a newly established support group for the San Diego Foundation for the Performing Arts, is sponsoring a prelude to the performance by Rudolph Nureyev and Friends: a lecture by Dance magazine’s San Diego correspondent, Bill Fark.

The talk, at 7 p.m. Jan. 5 at the Westgate Hotel, is the first in a series of lectures accompanying the foundation’s concerts. A social hour preceding the program will begin at 6 p.m.

“This series is intended to provide the public with education and understanding about the background and work of artists who will be performing in San Diego this season,” said Fred Colby, development director of the foundation.

Rudolph Nureyev and Friends will dance at the San Diego Civic Theatre on Jan. 15-16.

- Three’s Company’s collaborative effort with KPBS-TV (Channel 15) will be aired nationally on public television. It will be on KPBS at 4 p.m. Jan. 10.

“Take 3,” a video-dance program filmed on location, culminates three years of work. The program, which has already aired locally, was awarded honorable mention by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in the performance category for local programming--the first project submitted by KPBS to receive such recognition this year.

- California Ballet Company dancer Marlena Mueller went off to study at the School of the Chicago Ballet last summer. Now she’s headed back to the Windy City--but this time the San Diego-trained dancer has a contract to perform with the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Mueller will be an apprentice with the Chicago City Ballet as well and continue to study with the great Maria Tallchief, former prima ballerina with the New York City Ballet.