BalletFest Best Judged on Core Enthusiasm

BalletFest 2000 wants to showcase California classicism, but the best thing about it is the enthusiasm of its dominant audience: the teachers and, especially, students of the summer school workshop of the American Cecchetti Society.

Ever encouraging and alert for any glint of technical competence, this classical in-crowd buoyed an uneven opening program by two local companies on Thursday at Cal State L.A., ultimately helping everyone else see the event in the most positive terms as an educational outreach endeavor.

And that proved a blessing, because if you looked at what happened on the Luckman stage in this way, it mattered less that the program had virtually nothing to do with the cultural life of this city or with the current state of ballet itself. What mattered was the hope for the future on both sides of the proscenium.

Of course, “Giselle” has never exactly been a trainee exercise, and the Inland Pacific Ballet production of Act 2 demonstrated nothing so much as the gap between mere diligence and true professionalism. Set for some reason in a ruined cathedral, Victoria Koenig’s staging suffered from a ruinously slow recording of Adolphe Adam’s score--with even the exemplary Sarah Spradlin in the title role unable to sustain her dancing emotionally at that tempo and none of the other principals able to sustain themselves technically for very long.

Clenched, drill-team Wilis, who lacked any sense of blood-lust, leading males pushed well beyond their capabilities, mime passages set to the wrong music: This “Giselle” needed to be reconsidered at every possible level.

Led again by the accomplished Spradlin, the company looked infinitely freer in Elise Borne’s staging of a suite from the second half of George Balanchine’s “Who Cares?” (music by Gershwin), reminding everyone that ballet dancing can actually be enjoyable and not just an obstacle course.

No virtuoso, Christopher Bonomo provided the key to the pleasure principle animating the performance, partnering three women ardently and playfully establishing Balanchine’s sly endgame: presenting a classical divertissement that pretends to be a nonchalant Broadway showpiece.

However, the strongest ensemble prowess on Thursday came from Pasadena Dance Theatre in Laurence Blake’s “Etudes,” a quasi-confrontational sextet to a piano score by Einojuhani Rautavaara. The choreography alternated among classroom technique, pedestrian stances and intense gestural ploys, never developing or fusing these movement styles and relying on a formula recapitulation finale to end matters.

No matter: The threadbare choreographic strategies took on a life of their own as embodied by this cast, giving even those who didn’t belong to the Cecchetti cheerleaders a reason to hope for the best on BalletFest’s final nights.

* “BalletFest 2000” concludes tonight with a performance at 8 by the Diablo Ballet Company and Los Angeles Chamber Ballet in the Luckman Fine Arts Complex, Cal State Los Angeles, 5151 State University Drive. $20 to $25. (323) 343-6600.