USIU Ballet Stays on Its Toes Despite the School’s Woes

“Everything is beautiful at the ballet,” according to Broadway’s longest-running but recently ended “A Chorus Line.” But the past year has been anything but beautiful for the ballet program at United States International University.

The school’s financial problems have led to the cancellation of two concerts since September, and the future of the program--which offers both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree--is uncertain.

Nevertheless, the faculty and the program’s 24 students have hung tough throughout the crisis. In fact, the university-based company, known as the International Ballet, is gearing up for an ambitious comeback at the Lyceum Theatre this weekend.

The 3-year-old troupe--founded by Steven Wistrich, the head of the school’s ballet program--will premiere five pieces and restage another new work during its three-performance run this weekend.

“It’s just amazing,” Wistrich said during a break from rehearsals. “It was difficult to keep up our morale with all the problems, but not one of the students pulled out.

“In some funny way, it seems that all the stress and lack of support (generated) a surge of creativity. Maybe the choreographers were able to pour their hearts out into the work.”

The byproduct is this weekend’s potpourri of classic and contemporary dance.

“We’re going to perform six ballets in two days,” Wistrich said, “and five of those are brand-new. People are going to have to come to two performances to see them all.”

Wistrich believes the quality of the concert will be near-professional, despite the tiny budget.

“We had no money for costumes and scenery, but that forced the choreographers to be more creative,” he said. “We’re trying to stretch the company, and the budgetary limitations forced us into a more contemporary look. But we’ll have costumes for the big Busby Berkeley piece (James Kelly’s ‘A Hollywood Story’) and for the ‘Raymonda’ (the only revival).

The group commissioned a score for Elizabeth Rowe Wistrich’s “Straw Feet” and then couldn’t pay for it. “But the composer (San Diego-based Brian Koln) donated the score because he really wanted us to do it,” Steven Wistrich said.

He will join his students in “Shostakovich Piano Concerto No. 2” to compensate for a paucity of male dancers in the ensemble.

“We have about six men in the company, but we didn’t have enough for that piece,” he said.

Wistrich and his dancers are counting on community support for this weekend’s concert to strengthen their hold on life.

“We have a lot to offer the community, if we’re only offered the opportunity,” he said.

If Wistrich is upbeat about the shows, he is more than that about his charges.

“We have 24 students this year, and three-quarters of them are pretty professional. But when I got here there were only a handful, and they weren’t very good. The program was dilapidated,” he said. The administration “brought us in to build it up.”

Both the program and the ballet company that Wistrich created were growing in size and stature until the university’s financial problems trickled down to the School of Performing and Visual Arts.

“We got to the point where we could have been one of the top programs in the country and the top program in California,” he said. “We were just awarded a $2,000 contract from the San Diego city schools. But we were the only (arts event) the administration canceled last fall. Everything got canceled for winter.

“This program is really important because there are no other major ballet programs in the Southern California area, and there are only a handful in the whole country that offer degrees in ballet,” Wistrich said.

Some administrative reshuffling and a successful fund-raising effort could still put the ballet program back on track, despite the recent setbacks, he said.

“There’s been some restructuring, and Provost Dr. Roland Tharp is interested in the five-year development program I submitted,” Wistrich said. “The ballet program is definitely not profit-making now, but we’re hoping to get to that point.”

“We’re heavily dependent on fund development,” Tharp acknowledged, “but we’re in much better financial shape than we have been in 35 years, although we still need a major fund-raising effort.

“There were very lean rations for the performance,” he said, “but we had a terrible problem with cash flow. The current plan is for a full three-concert ballet series next season.”

Performances of International Ballet of USIU are scheduled for 8 p.m. today and 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday at the Lyceum Theatre’s main stage.