Making overtures to dance.

THE OVERTURE Center for the Arts opened its doors September 18 in Madison, WI. Designed by Cesar Pelli, the structure welds sleek, posh, postmodern Overture Hall to the city's former premier stage, the Capitol Theater, a refurbished 1928 Rapp and Rapp movie house. In the hub between old and new sit three fully-equipped black box theaters, as well as art galleries and multi-purpose public spaces.

For this, the community can thank philanthropist W. Jerome Frautschi, who, six years ago, offered to build his native city a state-of-the-art culture palace. The total price tag was $205 million. Based on available information, Overture Foundation President George Austin believes this is the largest single-donor private girl for an arts facility in American history.

Many new performance halls are designed primarily for music, but in a city with a world-class university that offers the country's oldest academic modern dance program, it's logical that Overture took dancers' needs into account. The artistic directors of the center's two resident companies--W. Earle Smith of Madison Ballet and Lisa Thurrell of Kanopy Dance--brought to the planning table their input on floor requirements, lighting, dressing rooms, backstage crossover space, ways to minimize problems in spaces shared with catering elevators, and myriad issues that impact dancers.

The Overture team listened. All three black boxes have flexible lighting grids and sprung floors. The Capitol Theater re-opens next year as a mid-size venue with updated technology and a new floor. The 2,250-seat Overture Hall is equipped to accommodate fully-staged ballets.

Most of America's major modern dance companies have performed in Madison, though great ballet moments have been few and far between. The new facility guarantees Madison's future as a magnet city for contemporary dance. Seven local companies, including Kanopy and Li Chiao-Ping Dance, drew SRO crowds to the 250-seat Promenade Hall, the largest of the black boxes, during Overture's opening week.

But the new center's greatest impact may be on ballet. In addition to the Madison Ballet, Overture is home to the Madison Opera and the Madison Symphony Orchestra. The hall's superb acoustics, cushy seats with optimal sight lines, and cosmopolitan, 21st-century ambience raise the bar for the classical arts in this city. The theater's debut offering, Stars Over Wisconsin, included native son and American Ballet Theatre principal Ethan Stiefel with dance partner Gillian Murphy.

Overture Hall also ups the ante for Madison Ballet. Previously stunted because the city's best young dancers left town for professional schools, the organization is charting new ground. Its annual operating budget has reached the $1 million mark, and in addition there's a $1 million matching endowment from the Great Performance Fund set up by Frautschi's wife, Pleasant T. Rowland. Madison Ballet opened its own professional academy this fall, with a studio company of 33 young dancers who work closely with guest artists. Former ABT soloist Christina Fagundes calls it her second home.

During Overture's opening festivities the Madison Ballet Studio Company, with Complexions Contemporary Ballet soloist Sandra Brown, Texas Ballet Theater's Margo McCann and Michael Clark, and Oakland Ballet's Genevieve Custer (who's freelancing as a guest artist during Oakland's hiatus), premiered W. Earle Smith's jazzy new five-movement, neoclassical Night Dances. Local critics, who've seen too many Nutcrackers and too little new ballet, were surprised and pleased.