A chance for dance in Los Angeles?

The distance is 137 yards--about the length of a football field. But when both the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Master Chorale move from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion--their home for thirty-nine years--across the street to the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the dance world hopes run with the ball, too.

Beginning this month and running through June 2004, the Los Angeles Music Center is producing its own downtown dance season for the first time, with six North American dance companies slated to perform. And while the Pavilion is still home to the Los Angeles Opera, whose current season boasts sixty-nine performances--a 20 percent increase from last year when the hall was shared with the Philharmonic--dance audiences have every reason to be hopeful. Karen Schmidt, director of booking and presentations, is overseeing the programming.

"The past three years the Music Center has been dipping its toes in the water with dance," says Schmidt. "We initially programmed the Bolshoi, Alvin Ailey, Twyla Tharp, and Complexions; and ABT was here last year. We have been seeing what audience interests were in a dance series at the Music Center. We found the interest was extremely broad, from ballet to contemporary work."

Indeed, San Francisco Ballet kicks off the first season with seven performances, including a mixed bill and a new staging of the full-length Don Quixote, with Yuan Yuan Tan and Vadim Solomakha, above. Dance Theatre of Harlem performs in January, with two programs that include Michael Smuin's new St. Louis Woman: A Blues Ballet.

March brings the Los Angeles debut of Shen Wei Dance Arts with two contemporary works, while Alvin Alley American Dance Theater returns that same month with mixed repertory programs. ABT returns in April, dancing a mixed hill and Kenneth MacMillan's full-length Romeo and Juliet. Paul Taylor Dance Company brings down the curtain. Announced for fall 2004 is a visit from New York City Ballet.

Dance will also be on the boards at REDCAT, the 270-seat Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater that is part of the Gehry-designed Disney Hall. Mark Murphy, executive director of the multiuse space, has programmed the first season with six dance productions. Next summer he plans a festival of new works that will be 60-70 percent dance-based.

"I think it's a good start," says Murphy, "and am hoping it will grow." Murphy's focus is mostly on foreign troupes. Japan's dumb type kicks off the season in October, Deja Donne (Czech Republic/Italy), is scheduled for December, and January features Mexico's Delfos Danza Contemporanea. CalArts Dance Ensemble pays tribute to singer Nina Simone in December and performs another program in May.

Murphy is thinking long-term as well. "My hope is that we'll be able to identify projects and artists that we can develop further through a commissioning program, primarily with dance. We're in the early stages of conversations with Portland, San Francisco, San Diego, and Seattle to develop a West Coast infrastructure where we would eventually be able to, perhaps, share both commissioning and presentation opportunities and encourage some exchange up and down tire I-5 corridor."