Back in the U.S., With Style : Nanette Glushak returns home to present the Ballet du Capitole in an all-American program

Toulouse is known for its university--the second oldest, after Paris, in France--and for housing the tomb of St. Thomas Aquinas. If Nanette Glushak has her way, it will also become known for the Ballet du Capitole de Toulouse.

“It has been in existence for over 30 years,” said Glushak, the company’s director of dance. “But as what? Just as part of an opera house, doing operas, operettas, a couple of ballet programs. Really, the ballet started three years ago when I took direction.”

A confident, exuberant American, Glushak was speaking by phone from Akron, Ohio, where Ballet du Capitole had stopped to perform as part of a tour that arrives Tuesday in Cerritos, the company’s West Coast debut.

Glushak’s title doesn’t reflect her full duties. In keeping with the French arts structure, Nicolas Joel, the artistic director of the opera house in Toulouse, is listed as artistic director of the company.

“It’s an argument I have there,” Glushak said. Although she’s responsible for the repertory, the dancers--the whole company--Joel decides what is performed in the theater.

“Not that I’m being critical,” she added. “[Joel] took this huge chance in hiring me. In France, everything is very political. Arts too. He took this American--I had quite a good reputation, and I had staged Balanchine repertory and I was living in France--and he said, ‘I want her and nobody else.’ He didn’t consult with anybody. He’s one of the few opera directors who love dance and wanted to push the company forward.

“He said, ‘Bring me and make me soloists, and bring me the real repertory of today.’ ”

So she built up the company, staging classics by Balanchine and Bournonville and commissioning works from European choreographers such as Hans van Manen of the Netherlands and Mauro Bigonzetti of Italy’s Aterballetto.

The touring repertory, however, is solidly American--Balanchine, Tudor and de Mille.

“That’s the presenter’s choice,” Glushak said. Columbia Artists heard that the company did Balanchine well, she explained, so they circulated the idea of a tour with various theaters. “That’s what they wanted. They all asked for this.”

Is it frustrating not to show off French and other contemporary work?

“No, for us, it’s great. In Toulouse, we do only 25 performances a year because the opera gets the theater. We count so much on touring. You only get good if you’re dancing more often.”

The six-week tour started in Maine last month and ends in New York on March 9.

The repertory is all familiar.

Born in New York, Glushak studied at the School of American Ballet in the same class with Gelsey Kirkland and Fernando Bujones. She joined New York City Ballet in 1968, dancing in the corps, and left two years later to join American Ballet Theatre.

“That’s where I really developed,” she said.

She danced there with Mikhail Baryshnikov in Balanchine’s “Apollo” and also appeared with ABT in the 1977 movie “The Turning Point.” Then, in 1979, she left “for personal reasons” and started to teach. “The story [behind her departure] would have made a good soap opera,” she said.

Is that a hint that she left on bad terms with Baryshnikov? “Hardly,” she said. “He used me in all his productions.”

On the recommendation of Peter Martins, who had just become director of New York City Ballet, she became co-artistic director with her choreographer-teacher and future husband Michel Rahn of the Fort Worth Ballet in 1983. They stayed there for four years, then moved to Europe.

“We said, ‘Let’s move where we want to be,’ ” she recalled. “We went to France, installed in Lyon and guested all over the place. He was choreographing. I was teaching. I wasn’t dancing.”

They had their only child, Alexandra, about six years ago.

*

Invited to take over the company in Toulouse, the two set about changing the look of the dancers, combining Russian training for the upper body and Balanchine technique for the lower.

“Anybody knows when you walk into a dance performance, you look and you decide about dancers’ tops first before you notice if they have good feet or not,” she said. “So we worked on that very consciously.

“We had to reteach all the rules of the Russian system. It’s our way, and our way was to use the Vaganova system for the top. From the waist down, we really have basically used the musicality and the progression of speed of the Balanchine schooling.”

While she is responsible for staging the Balanchine works, Tudor’s “Dark Elegies” was staged by Sallie Wilson, an ABT dramatic principal dancer who worked with Tudor. The ballet is danced to Mahler’s “Kindertotenlieder.”

Because of financial constraints, she said, “we’re dancing everything to tape. But they’re good tapes. The ballets still work.”

De Mille’s “Rodeo” was staged by Terry Orr, formerly ballet master at ABT and now artistic director of Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre.

After the tour, Glushak has high hopes for the company.

“The only way this company is going to get any better is if they make us a national company,” with the resulting prestige and support, she said. “There’s talk. There’s rumor. We’ve earned it. Coming out of the provinces, we are really the up-and-coming company.”

* Ballet du Capitole de Toulouse will dance three mixed repertory programs Tuesday through Thursday at 8 p.m. at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 12700 Center Court Drive. The Tuesday program will be Balanchine’s “Scotch Symphony” and “Prodigal Son” and de Mille’s “Rodeo.” The Wednesday program will be “Scotch Symphony,” “Rodeo” and Tudor’s “Dark Elegies.” The Thursday program is all Balanchine: “Rubies,” “Prodigal Son” and “Raymonda Variations.” $25-$40. (800) 300-4345.