Dance

- You won’t be seeing Three’s Company founder Jean Isaacs on stage any more--chronic knee injuries ended her dancing days earlier this year. But retirement hasn’t slowed her down.

Isaacs has choreographed a complex, four-movement dance work for the troupe’s January concert, which continues Friday and Saturday night at UC San Diego’s Mandell Weiss Center for the Performing Arts, and the retired dancer is ready to add another achievement to her portfolio this week.

“I choreographed the Pacific Chamber Opera’s ‘Naughty Marietta’ (which moves into the Lyceum Theatre on Thursday),” said Isaacs, “and I’ve enjoyed it so much--even though most of the performers are singers,” not trained dancers.

Working on two modern dance projects simultaneously has been a tremendous challenge to this veteran choreographer, given the limited number of dancers available in town.

“I had to pull some apprentices from our company to work on the opera,” Isaacs acknowledged. “But even the non-dancers are trying very hard. They’re so eager, they’ll try anything, so I’ve given them a lot more to do than most choreographers would have attempted. It’s simple movement, but not so simple.”

To Isaacs, dance making is exhilarating.

“I’m trying to do more to fill the gap so I won’t mind not performing any more. I’m feeling so much better now that I’m keeping very busy.”

Right on the heels of these two taxing assignments, Isaacs will also choreograph a work for a student/faculty concert at UC Irvine.