DANCE : DeFore Center’s Students Had Better Be on Their Toes : Five members of John Clifford’s Ballet of Los Angeles--including Allegra Kent, the former Balanchine-era New York City Ballet star--are leading classes.

For the next three weeks, Orange County’s aspiring dancers have a chance to rub shoulders--and toe shoes--with one of the legendary names from the Balanchine-era New York City Ballet.

Allegra Kent, for whom Balanchine originated roles in his “Agon” and “Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet,” among other works, is one of five members of John Clifford’s Ballet of Los Angeles who are leading classes, through Aug. 3, at the Jimmie DeFore Dance Center in Costa Mesa.

For her part, teaching at a small, out-of-the-way studio is a way of preserving and passing on the Balanchine tradition, away from the glimmer of spotlights and curtain calls.

“It’s fun to teach and see what happens,” said Kent, 52. “There is a bit of improvisation between the steps the teacher teaches, the music the pianist plays and how the student chooses to present that.”

In addition to Kent, who left NYCB in 1983, the teachers include Clifford, 43, a member of the New York City Ballet from 1967 until he left to found the now-defunct Los Angeles Ballet in 1975; Alla Khaniashvili-Artiushkina, a former principal dancer with the Bolshoi Ballet; New York City Ballet principal Darci Kistler, and Johnna Kirkland, a former soloist with NYCB and a principal dancer with Los Angeles Ballet. (The Los Angeles Ballet folded in 1985.)

“Of course, someone has to have the same teacher to progress,” Kent said. “But it’s very good to get some ideas from the outside. If someone says something in a different way, or in an unusual way, if you hear something that is unusual, you can change something about yourself. Certainly studying dance is a process of changing and trying to perfect or approach it differently.”

A native Angelina, Kent also is artistic director of the Stamford City Ballet in Connecticut and associate director of the Ballet of Los Angeles, founded by Clifford in 1987.

While demonstrating that movement is an important part of the teaching process, Kent said she also talks a lot when she works with young dancers.

“About 15 things immediately come to mind that you must say,” she said. “You can tell immediately their approach and certain things, and as a class progresses, you see more and more. I feel I can say some very important things. I can see a little and say quite a bit.”

But Kent also said she realizes the importance of not overloading a student.

“It’s like being a psychiatrist,” she said. “You can’t possibly say everything or the person wouldn’t have a chance. So you choose one or two very important things to focus on. . . . I usually tell them to relate to their own body. Most dancers don’t.”

Kent continues to take a ballet class daily but said mastering technique is not an end-all in itself.

“The greatest dancers are not the most perfect dancers, although they might be,” she said. “(Greatness) is different things--spirit fire.”

Besides, she said, dancing has become “quite standardized in some ways. Whether it’s television or video, everybody learns the same thing. I don’t know what it is. . . . Some dancing is drab.”

No, she would not mention any names.

“It’s always been that way,” she said. “I like to go to the ballet and other dance and see some unusual, exquisite, transcendent thing happen, or else, why bother? You could go to the aquarium.”

Kent and the others are teaching in Orange County in part because Clifford could not find studio space in Los Angeles for his dancers.

“The existing schools are packed,” Clifford said. “They really don’t have any time. We need three-four hours a day, minimum. I couldn’t find any space.”

Into the breach stepped Gloria DeFore, who offered Clifford her studio space. “It’s the best thing I’ve seen in Los Angeles or Orange County, and she had the time,” Clifford said.

Clifford called the four-week session “an experiment,” but he has sights on the future too.

“If we see enough interest, we will continue in the fall,” he said. “We could work this into full time.”

In fact, he said, “if something happens in Orange County, if there is an interest, if these workshops do well, I may move down, change the name (of the company). But I would have to be approached. . . .

“I did the Los Angeles Ballet for 10 years. I’m not about to run around fund-raising for a community that doesn’t want to have a company. . . . If not, I will keep the company as I have it. It’s a small touring company. We stay in the black, break even, and I don’t have to fund-raise.”

It took three years for Clifford’s new company to reach its namesake city. Clifford said financial problems and a busy schedule kept the 11-member Ballet of Los Angeles away until April.

Clifford’s own schedule, he said, has kept him very busy. He arrived from Italy the night before classes began this week.

He returned to the states to find some disturbing trends in dance, he said: “There is a very big trend in ballet companies in America, where boards of directors are assuming more and more artistic control of the company.

“I can understand why board members, being businessmen themselves, think in terms of having a businessman run the company. That’s fine, up to a point. I think one should be fiscally responsible. But I don’t think boards should be telling artistic director what to do, which I think is happening more and more.”

Even more upsetting, he said, is the controversy about National Endowment of the Arts funding. “I think it’s a mess, disgusting,” he said.

“I’m very upset it’s gotten even this far. Talk about censorship, it’s outrageous this would would happen in this country. When I was in Europe, I felt embarrassed for America that (Congress) would even get to the point where they would even consider censorship of artists--because it won’t stop there.

“I don’t like to be in a position to defend our government because our government is more repressive than East Germany is as far as the arts are concerned. They don’t have these questions in France, Germany or Italy. There, if some things are shocking, the better they’re regarded.”