Cincinnati Ballet.

ARONOFF CENTER FOR THE ARTS, CINCINNATI FEBRUARY 9-10, 1996 REVIEWED BY JANET LIGHT

Evening-length ballets attract Cincinnati Ballet's largest audiences, but the two mixed bills on the repertoire calendar never go unnoticed, particularly by devoted local dancegoers. In the first season planned by him, new artistic director Peter Anastos has grouped those programs by theme. His programming choices for the American Festival in February seemed to play, well with nearly everybody. Anastos's selections also rather ingeniously maximized this troupe's uneven mix of abilities as it regroups under his direction.

Agnes de Mille's Rodeo isn't new (it premiered in 19A2), but it's new here, and Cincinnati is located just enough West and South for the ballet's famous square dance interlude to go over grandly. As staged by Terrence S. Orr, with decor that reproduced the original Oliver Smith backdrop, the ballet looked homespun and sincere. Younger people I talked to seemed grateful for the chance to see Rodeo; some older ones who remembered it nearly got sentimental.

Pretty, sturdy-looking Melissa Allen built her wistful but open-faced Cowgirl so honestly, showing how complicated adolescent turmoil can be, that she took the ballet and everyone in it to a timeless place. This was fortunate, because none of the other principals on opening night made as strong an impression. In the second cast, however, Cameron Kent, who's new to the company, danced a very affable Champion Roper (to Karyn Lee Connell's more boisterously played heroine) and lit things up.

Another local premiere, George Balanchine's Who Cares?, was a well-chosen selection; it looked smart on the main stage of the city's sparkling new downtown theater complex. And it allowed the dancers to be themselves and aspire honestly to the choreography's demands. (Dancers can look awfully happy doing that.) Without getting every foot stretched to perfection, Elyse Borne's staging drew a bouncy Look, Ma, I'm Dancin' exuberance from the ensemble, especially from the well-matched male quintet. Then the very tall and leggy Victoria Hall, who joined the company last September following stints with New York City Ballet and Anastos's Garden State Ballet, stirred the atmosphere with such bold glamour and attack in "The Man I Love" and "Fascinatin' Rhythm" that she single-handedly upped the ballet's temperature several degrees.

The diminutive Connell, a dependable principal who can sometimes appear brittle, looked peppy and bright in "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise," while corps member Caitie Obenour negotiated the tricky third leading role with plucky sweetness. New corps dancer Gregory Larson gamely partnered all three women. The Gershwin score got a fine reading under company music director and jazz musician-composer Carmon Deleone, with Ron Matson playing the piano solos.

A less familiar local premiere, Anastos's The Lost World, didn't fare as well, though everyone in it danced like demons. Commissioned by Miami City Ballet for the 1992 Christopher Columbus quincentennial [see Reviews/ National, January 1993, page 111], the ballet enacts a feverish primitive ritual in some Mesoamerican fantasy world. Much of the movement reflects the underlying percussive beat in Peter Golub's minimalist but lushly orchestrated score. Consequently the ballet's few quiet interludes, where tunic-clad women move silently on pointe, for instance, each one pressing her hands together in movements that dip and curve like the sea, provided striking contrasts.

A long central pas de deux seemed designed to display Hall's colossal extension in the sharpest relief possible. Later, she and partner Jay Goodlett led an exhausting-looking group rite. I'm not sure how this ballet was meant to add up, but a clearer ending might have helped.