Dance-Off : Members of Soviet’s 1st Private Ballet Troupe Learn Steps From Tex. Hosts

iet ballet star Alexander Mischenko, wearing a new red bandanna, watched as Shawn Strahan demonstrated the Texas two-step in his shiny brown cowboy boots. Then Mischenko imitated the steps precisely--adding a pirouette.

The dance duel came as College Station welcomed the Soviet Union’s first private ballet company, the Bolshoi-Grigorovich, which makes its U.S. premiere tonight at Texas A&M; University with a new version of “The Nutcracker.”

A country-Western versus Russian classical ballet dance-off pitting Strahan’s troupe, the Aggie Wranglers, against the Soviet company was the high point of the “Howdy!” reception the College Station Chamber of Commerce threw earlier in the week.

American and Soviet youths, in a circle around Mischenko and Strahan, cheered as they danced for several minutes. A few international couples arranged dance dates.

“A lot of us, being from back-country Texas, didn’t know what a big deal this was until somebody told us,” said Bobby Postma, 22, a member of the Aggie Wranglers. “Once we understood, we were pretty excited.”

The ballet company’s artistic director, Yuri Grigorovich, said he wanted to premiere his new troupe in this small college town instead of under the glaring lights of New York or Los Angeles because “our company is very young and their youth is suitable to this surrounding.”

“The students here opened their hearts. They have no prejudices,” Grigorovich, holding a wooden key to the city and wearing a denim suit with bandanna, said through an interpreter.

Grigorovich, former artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow, formed his 60-member company this fall. The first of its kind in the Soviet Union, it is funded by private sponsors and ticket sales instead of government subsidies.

Grigorovich chose the dancers, age 18-24, from all over the Soviet Union.

The company, which has performed in Moscow, will stage Grigorovich’s new version of the classic Christmas ballet “The Nutcracker” in College Station. During its weeklong run, it will also perform the second act of “Swan Lake” and an evening of short classical dances.

The “Nutcracker” performance tonight in the campus’s 2,500-seat Rudder Auditorium will mark the first time in a quarter century that a Soviet ballet company has performed the classic on an American stage.

Grigorovich, who choreographed a version of “The Nutcracker” that played on U.S. stages in 1966, wouldn’t divulge changes he made to the new production.

“It is better to see it once than to explain it 1,000 times,” he said.

The dancers arrived this week, moving into a hotel-dormitory near campus. They rehearsed twice a day and spent their off-time learning how Texas college students spend their free time.

“My only problem is to get the dancers to go and rehearse. We came here to work and many of them want to play,” said troupe director Vladimir Goriunov.

The dancers speak almost no English, and when interpreters weren’t around, conversations with their American hosts were conducted with hand signals--and giggles.

The Soviet dancers had little trouble communicating their brand preferences at a shopping mall, however.

After signaling to American friends that she wanted to buy perfume, Oksana Konobeyeva, 18, who is from a small Siberian town and will perform her first starring role as Maria in the “Nutcracker,” stood at the counter and commanded, “Dior.”

Dmitry Tuboltsev, 20, who stars as the Nutcracker prince, refused to buy any fanny packs that weren’t emblazoned with the Nike logo.

Strahan got something he valued at the reception--Mischenko’s autograph on his cowboy boot.

“Now I’ve got (country music star) Reba McEntire on one, and Sasha (Mischenko) on the other.”