"BUYING CLUB" COMMISSIONS YORK PREMIERE.

How can midsize ballet companies afford new works by top-tier choreographers? One possible answer: Pool resources and form a "buying club."

That's what four companies call their innovative arrangement to commission choreographer Lila York to create Gloria, a new ballet to music by Francis Poulenc. Splitting the cost allowed the troupes--American Repertory Ballet (New Brunswick, New Jersey), Atlanta Ballet, Dayton Ballet, and State Ballet of Missouri (Kansas City)--to afford a work by York, a former Paul Taylor dancer and sought-after choreographer whose customers include such bigger-budget companies as Pacific Northwest Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Boston Ballet, and Houston Ballet.

"We're combining our resources to be able to afford somebody on the top shelf," said Dayton artistic director Dermot Burke, who first proposed the buying-club idea. "Otherwise, we'd be priced out of the market."

Burke declined to specify how much the group was paying York, but said a top-tier choreographer typically might charge $15,000 to $20,000 for a new ballet. Add the costs of production design, he said, and the total tab reaches the $35,000 range--a big bill for a midsize company to pay for a single work.

The buying club pays a higher total because of the expenses of staging the ballet for four companies. Still, by splitting the costs, each company winds up spending about half what it would have paid to obtain a comparable work on its own. "If I can cut the cost from $35,000 to $17,500 and get something state-of-the-art--which York is--then that's a major coup," Burke said.

The club's guidelines for York included adaptability to the smallest of the four companies--Burke's twenty-member Dayton Ballet--and the flexibility to use the piece as either the opening or closing work on a program. "As soon as we gave her some ideas, zoom--she was right there," Burke said. "She's been a pleasure throughout the whole thing."

Because of the demand for York's services, the group agreed that she would not be asked to stage Gloria personally for all four companies. Instead, repetiteur Andrea Weber assisted York during the creative process and learned the choreography as York taught it to Atlanta Ballet's dancers. Another repetiteur, Nancy Jordan, learned it while Weber was setting it on American Repertory Ballet. Jordan will teach it to the State Ballet and Dayton companies.

American Repertory Ballet was the first buying-club member to perform Gloria, premiering it last October. State Ballet of Missouri will follow February 18 to 21; Atlanta Ballet March 25 to 28; and Dayton Ballet during its 1999-2000 season.