CLEVELAND PHOENIX PREPARES TO FLY IN `PETER PAN'.

When Cleveland San Jose Ballet collapsed last fall on the eve of its twenty-fifth anniversary season, the largest theater in Cleveland's Playhouse Square Center was left with a season's worth of dark nights, and the Northeast Ohio audience was deprived of its favorite form of dance: the full-length story ballet. Next season, the Cleveland Phoenix Project will help fill the void by mounting two large-scale productions: Septime Webre's Peter Pan in the fall and Stephen Mills's Hamlet in the spring.

The Phoenix is not rising from the ashes of the late Cleveland San Jose company. Rather, it is a new partnership formed by Dayton Ballet, a twenty-member ensemble, and Ohio Ballet, a chamber company of sixteen dancers in residence at the University of Akron. Each troupe will continue to tour and perform separate home seasons under its own name. The two will merge only to present contemporary story ballets. Upcoming performance dates are October 19-21 at Playhouse Square in Cleveland; October 5 and 6 at E. J. Thomas Hall in Akron; and October 25-28 at the Victoria Theater in Dayton.

Artistic directors Dermot Burke of Dayton Ballet and Jeffrey Graham Hughes of Ohio Ballet are former Joffrey Ballet dancers and longtime colleagues who have previously collaborated by co-commissioning choreography and exchanging productions. They will rent costumes and scenery for the Cleveland Phoenix Project. The accompanying music will be played on tape. The project's $400,000 budget is expected to be raised from Ohio foundations and corporations.

"The notion to combine only as needed seems a responsible approach," said Kathleen Cerveny of the Cleveland Foundation, a major arts funder in Northeast Ohio. "The multiple-city endeavor will bring audiences and funding from three cities. It will help fill the gap in Cleveland."