Fall’s Fresh Faces

Dance

Alexandra Ansanelli, 17, ballet dancer

Look for: Ansanelli’s debuts in three splashy vehicles--Peter Martins’ “Fearful Symmetries” and “Barber Violin Concerto,” plus George Balanchine’s “Western Symphony”--during the Oct. 13-18 New York City Ballet engagement at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

Why she matters: For more than half a century, the glories of Balanchine choreography have depended on the presence of wonder women. Now, in the post-Balanchine era, these paragons must be trained and nurtured by someone other than the master himself. Ansanelli seems to prove that the process can work.

Just a corps member of New York City Ballet, Ansanelli is distinctive enough to be singled out in the current Dance Magazine as “an obvious heiress to the wealth of ballerina roles in the City Ballet repertory.” Two years after joining City Ballet as an apprentice, she has earned accolades, and a Princess Grace Award for emerging artists, in a wide range of repertory.

Praised for “breathtaking lightness” by Anna Kisselgoff in the New York Times, she has also been called “a wild little thing with a mind of her own” by Joan Acocella in the Wall Street Journal. When it comes to City Ballet style, who could ask for anything more?

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Desmond Richardson, 29, star modern dance and ballet dancer

Look for: Richardson’s musical theater debut in “Fosse: A Celebration in Song and Dance,” Oct. 9 to Dec. 6, at the Ahmanson Theatre of the L.A. Music Center, prior to Broadway.

Why he matters: Best known to local audiences for performances with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Richardson subsequently joined American Ballet Theatre--where the title role of Lar Lubovitch’s full-length dance drama “Othello” was created for him.

As the walls come down between so-called high art and popular culture in America, a new breed of dancer finds it invigorating to escape categories and approach the art as a field without limits. Richardson embodies this trend at maximum daring and excitement. Besides making his mark in the most renowned modern dance and ballet companies in America, he’s co-founded a company of his own, Complexions, and worked in a rock project choreographed by Mayte Janelle Garcia, the wife of the Artist Formerly Known as Prince.

In “Fosse,” Richardson dances everything from the super-raunchy “Take Off With Us” ensemble from the movie “All That Jazz” to the lyric/nostalgic “Mr. Bojangles” duet from the show “Dancin’.” Think of him as taking versatility to the level of a holistic vision--possibly the ultimate millennial dancer.

MORE FALL PREVIEWS

Friday Calendar: A phalanx of fall’s first movie reviews.

Saturday: Give a hand to puppets--they’re everywhere.

Sunday: Fall Sneaks--a look at the coming movies.

Sept. TK: Howard Rosenberg reviews the new television series.

Sept. 20 TV Times: Our complete season preview.