Ballet is sexy.

HAVE YOU noticed? Ballet is getting sexy. From the brazenness of Lorena Feijoo in Val Caniparoli's duet No Other to the luscious sensuality of Dance Theatre of Harlem's Caroline Rocher in St. Louis Woman, from the oozing elegance of Peter Martins's Thou Swell at New York City Ballet to the tantalizing surrender of Alessandra Ferri in American Ballet theatre's Manon, the action on the ballet stage is beating up.

Even the publicity images that ballet companies are circulating embrace eroticism with a new ingenuity. Witness the brochures that announced San Francisco Ballet's 2002 season, in which a female dancer in a saucer tutu and bare legs enjoys the lustful caresses of a male dancer in the back seat of a convertible. Or the ABT advertising campaign that plastered a tasteful black-and-white photograph of a nude male torso--taut muscular flesh that made you want to reach out and touch--on bus shelters. Or the ad for the Milwaukee Ballet in DANCE MAGAZINE, where a dancer stands casually in a long, traditional tutu with hair flowing down.

SOME OF THIS new look is influenced by Europe, where choreographers like Angelin Preljocaj, Pina Bausch, and Matthew Bourne dress their dancers in evening gowns, lacy underwear, or leather. Preljocaj's Le Parc had scenes just this side of sadomasochism, hut entering a frankly sexual territory made stage magic. The episode in which a woman is held aloft, transferred by four pairs of male hands in one airborne swoon after another, is the stuff of erotic fantasy.

Of course there has always been an erotic component in ballet: the exposing of oneself through turnout, the strong, steely legs combined with fluid port de bras, the sly playing with music that allows a climax to build and slip away, the sweaty closeness of partner work. But usually the pristine quality of ballet dominates.

In my experience, the occasions that mined ballet's inherent eroticism (as opposed to romanticism) have been associated with the Joffrey Ballet (pre-Chicago). I remember, in 1963, the shock of pleasure at seeing Lisa Bradley swim through Gerald Arpino's Sea Shadow like a mermaid, her long hair grazing her partner during prone undulations. Like Jerome Robbins's Afternoon of a Faun, the duel displayed a narcissistic but riveting sexuality. (Going further hack to 1912, the original Afternoon of a Faun by Nijinsky outraged audiences with its final moment of autoeroticism. As Francis Mason put it recently, "He didn't get the girl, but he got the scarf.") In 1967, Robert Joffrey's Astarte placed an entwining duet amidst filmed close-ups, strobe lights, and rock music. In 1973, he commissioned Twyla Tharp's Deuce Coupe, in which Beach Boys songs blended with Tharp's appealing chaos to lend an adolescent sexuality.

WHEN A dancer reveals his or her sexuality and simultaneously sustains the integrity of ballet, the result is galvanizing. In St. Louis Woman, Caroline Rocher took over the stage with her feline swivels (choreography by Michael Smuin), and yet her purity of line was crystal clear. (Note: I did not find sexy the numerous times the women's legs splayed wide during partnering.) At these rare moments, one feels a delicious pull between sensuality and discipline.

In Hollywood, cleavage alone symbolizes sexiness. But in ballet, the nerve endings of the entire body can radiate sexuality. The trick is to do it with elegance and craft rather than to let the performance descend into vulgarity. A dancer can infuse a performance with both artistry and sexuality only if he or she feels the freedom to express his or her full personality. That's where the larger-than-life phenomenon comes in; that's when the audience feels showered with the glory of human possibility.