DANCE REVIEW : Ballet of Los Angeles at Saroyan Theatre, Fresno

What’s in a name? If a company called Ballet of Los Angeles plays two national tours without ever dancing in the City of the Angels, so what? Is the World Series really a WORLD series?

Anyway, it isn’t that nobody’s tried to get an L. A. booking for John Clifford’s latest company. The feelers are definitely out. Indeed, the usually reputable magazine Ballet Review announced plans for a home season to take place last fall, but nothing ever happened. Perhaps Angeleno dance presenters foolishly confuse Ballet of Los Angeles with Clifford’s former company, the gone-but-not-forgotten Los Angeles Ballet, just because of the random, incidental similarities in leadership, dance personnel, repertory, professionalism and taste.

But if the Big Orange has been unwelcoming, not so the Big Raisin and other cities to the north and east--even if they, too, are sometimes confused about exactly what they’re getting. You see, Clifford originally formed Ballet of Los Angeles last year to fulfill tour commitments of the defunct Chicago City Ballet, but he reconstituted it this season as an 11-member backup ensemble for four visiting Soviet dancers: Alla Khaniashvili-Artyushkina and her husband Vitali Artyushkin of the Bolshoi Ballet, plus Evgenia Kostyleva and her husband Anatoli Kucheruk of the Kiev Ballet.

Thus TV commecials for the current, seven-week tour emphasize the Soviet connection--to the point of showing clips of Natalia Bessmertnova and other Bolshoi luminaries who are definitely not appearing. And the marquee outside the William Saroyan Theatre in downtown Fresno on Thursday read simply “RUSSIAN BALLET 8 P.M.”

It’s ironic: In its farewell performance, Los Angeles Ballet impersonated a Soviet company (the fictional “Karkov Ballet”) on an episode of the dreadful, short-lived 1984 TV series “Glitter.” Is Ballet of Los Angeles now taking up where L.A. Ballet left off?

Obviously, the Artyushkins and Kucheruks didn’t sign for a 25-city midwinter tour of the United States just to repeat the same choreography they dance at home. All four turned up in Clifford’s new “Verdi Pas de Quatre,” broadly lampooning classical style while displaying their technical bravado as well. The formerly steely Khaniashvili-Artyushkina deliciously satirized ballerina affectation and Artyushkin gamely executed gags about danseur conceit and incompetence. However, Kostyleva and Kucheruk only occasionally projected the comedy strongly and encountered some of the very balance problems parodied by their Bolshoi counterparts. Kostyleva even fell in her solo--no joke.

The Kiev couple looked far more comfortable in the sole Russian import on this “RUSSIAN BALLET” program: Vainonen’s “Flames of Paris” pas de deux, with the tiny, dark-haired Kostyleva uncommonly fast, light and effortless at intricate pointework--and the long-haired, sharp-featured Kucheruk flying through sharply cantilevered barrel turns with a sensational extra, Mukhamedov-style twist at the end.

In contrast, the Bolshoi couple showcased their skills on what is for them risky new turf: Balanchine’s neoclassic “Allegro Brillante” to music by Tchaikovsky. Previously, Russians had to defect to dance Balanchine; now they have to guest but, very soon, several Balanchine ballets will be staged within the Soviet Union. The Artyushkins are clearly making an investment in their own future as artists.

Predictably, there were misplaced accents and superfluous mannerisms on Thursday (especially from the tall, beefy Artyushkin), but the performance looked better coached and more on track stylistically than the dancing of their Moscow colleague Andris Liepa in the American Ballet Theatre staging of Balanchine’s “Ballet Imperial” late last year.

Unfortunately, Clifford’s dancers didn’t exactly set an example of precision here. Their best effort: the revival of his “Fantasies,” an imaginative 1969 quartet (music by Vaughan Williams) that took a long time warming up on Thursday, but eventually drew secure, committed dancing from Courtland Weaver, Diane Dickson, David Rodriguez and Karyn Connell.

And the program still held major surprises: for starters, the dancing of Antonio Lopez, an incredibly exciting virtuoso during the Michael Smuin years at San Francisco Ballet but under a cloud ever since. It’s as if the pressures to look and dance like everyone else had chipped away at Lopez’s self-confidence and left him maimed in some fundamental sense. The scars were still evident Thursday--but not in Clifford’s otherwise stale “Bolero” (to Ravel), where Lopez again blazed with the feral intensity of an American Nureyev-in-the-making.

And what about the unannounced appearance of the great Allegra Kent in “Notturno” (to Schubert), Clifford’s new essay in formula lyricism? One of the finest American ballerinas of her generation, Kent is now 50, but she brought undiminished technical control and an unusual but persuasive musicality to her dancing Thursday, partnered nervously by Lopez.

Just over 30 years ago at New York City Ballet, Kent won enormous acclaim in Balanchine’s “Seven Deadly Sins,” portraying a character who tours America and becomes progressively corrupted, city by city. As Clifford’s associate director, is she now reliving that role--succumbing to Pride in Fresno, perhaps, Anger in Oakland and Avarice in Cupertino? Who knows?

But as long as she and Lopez can dance with the fierce individuality on view Thursday, that’s reason enough for getting Ballet of Los Angeles off the road and into the Wiltern, Wadsworth, JAT or Pantages as soon as possible.