ABT and Purchase cut a deal.

NEW YORK CITY--American Ballet Theatre has announced the formation of an innovative five-year partnership with the State University of New York at Purchase, an institution built by Governor Nelson Rockefeller in 1972 to serve as the state arts college, and whose Conservatory Dance Division offers one of the nation's premier dance programs.

The primary focus of the new partnership will be ABT residencies at the college. These residencies will provide the company with an economical, state-of-the-art home in which to prepare for its national and international tours and for its annual season at the Metropolitan Opera House, where the cost of rehearsal time and technical preparation is prohibitive.

"The ability of the creative artist to have time to work has become so limited," explains Carol Walker, dean of Purchase's dance division. "It's the finances, and where the values of this country are focused--the arts are not at the top of the list. This partnership is important because it will allow for time to create.

"Each year will be different, depending on ABT's calendar and the calendar of the performing arts center," she continues. "It's hoped that they will be able to preview and prepare new works."

According to Walker, Purchase has marvelous professional facilities that include "fourteen absolutely beautiful studios.

"We have physical therapy facilities, and two Pilates studios. We have our own dance theater which seats 270, with a thirty-six by forty-foot proscenium performing space. There is also the Performing Arts Center--a four-theater complex with a fully equipped concert hall that seats approximately thirteen hundred," she says.

The residencies will also benefit Purchase. "For our students the ability to see these astounding professionals in process and performance right here on their own campus is an amazing advantage," Walker adds. She points out that ABT's repertoire makes an excellent textbook for dance students. "ABT has such a wealth of repertoire that ranges across ages and periods and styles. They've always demonstrated such a respect for the diversity of the art."

In addition, during the residencies Purchase students will be able to take master classes with such ABT staff members as ballet mistress and coach Georgina Parkinson. The students will also participate as supernumeraries in ABT productions.

"While they are here we plan to have discussions with the dancers about the professional world--contracts, unions, everything," Walker says. "And our students will be able to watch rehearsals, [to] see and be involved. We hope that a few of our students, with preselection by our faculty, will be able to take company class occasionally. We hope that we can develop this further, to have direct access to repertoire and coaching."

Purchase has had informal links to ABT for many years. Students at the college already take class with a former ABT premier danseur, Gayle Young, and with Rosanna Seravalli, a former ABT soloist. ABT alumnus Enrique Martinez staged Coppelia for Purchase Dance Corps. And recently students in the dance division performed the pas de deux from Kenneth MacMillan's Concerto, with costumes on loan from ABT. The Concerto pas de deux was staged by Seravalli and coached by Parkinson. Longtime ABT prima ballerina Cynthia Gregory now serves as honorary chair of the Purchase College Friends of Dance.

As another facet of its partnership with the college, ABT will give annual performances of its Nutcracker, staged by artistic director Kevin McKenzie to a revised libretto by playwright Wendy Wasserstein, at the performing arts center there.

Beginning either next summer or in 1996 ABT will conduct a resident Summer Dance Institute at Purchase for students selected through national competitive auditions. "They're probably the only major company in the world that doesn't have its own school," Walker says. The summer dance institute would begin to fill that gap. Audition dates and locations had not been announced at press time, but young dancers interested in auditioning can phone the Purchase Dance Division for information: [phone].