Paris Program Beckons Ballet Students.

Imagine standing on the stage where Vaslav Nijinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps premiered in 1913, or country dancing on the lawn of the Palace at Versailles, as did King Louis XIV and his court, or taking five technique classes taught by a faculty member of the Paris Opera Ballet School.

For dance scholars with eleven days and $2,500 to spare, Chicago's Fine Arts Heritage Tours in affiliation with Witte Travel & Tours has just the ticket: a ballet study tour to Paris, including visits to Giverny, Versailles and Chartres.

Slated for June 21-July 1, 2001, this first in a series of five European ballet study tours offers classes, performances and museum visits. It targets "the high intermediate dancer, who is ready to approach a different style of dance; the teacher, who is looking for a new angle"; and eligible college students, who may earn three credit hours through Northeastern Illinois University, says FAHT co-director Paul Abrahamson, director of ballet at the School of Performing Arts in Naperville, Illinois, as well as the director of the Moose Project.

"We hope to engage in a pedagogy discussion with a youth troupe from Chartres to introduce American dancers to the stylistic differences between the schools and prepare them for the Paris classes. For example, we say `battement tendu jete.' They say `battement glisse,' which is the same thing," explains Abrahamson.

Highlighting the tour will be Paris Opera Ballet performances of Rudolf Nureyev's Romeo and Juliet and John Neumeier's A Midsummer Night's Dream, plus a Ballets Russes retrospective that includes visits to the Theatre des Champs Elysees, Theatre de la Musique and a collection of memorabilia at either the Musee Picasso or Musee National d' Art Moderne.

According to Abrahamson, the travel agency specializes in tour design and overseas arrangements for performing groups.

However, "it's one thing to assemble a program here and take it abroad [to perform]. They've already done that. The goal of FAHT is to follow the chronological development of classical ballet through Western Europe," says Abrahamson. With this tour, which departs from Detroit, "we're introducing dancers to a new learning situation. We're bringing them to one city and giving them a master teacher to show them their heritage as dancers. This will enrich them as intellectual people and they will become better artists," he says.

As ballet does not exist on tulle alone, the program embraces interdisciplinary influences--visual art, music, costuming and stage design--through gallery and museum tours, including to the Pads Opera, with its displays of stage sets and costume and scenery sketches related to its ballet and opera repertoire.

Among the other attractions are the Louvre, where a guided tour will emphasize painting and sculpture featuring the human form in motion; the Musee d'Orsay with its Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection, including the ballet paintings and sculptures of Edgar Degas; the Musee Rodin, dedicated to the famed sculptor whose art was inspired by dancers; and a stop at Monet's home in Giverny.

The package includes daily breakfasts and dinners, air and land transportation, accommodation in tourist-class hotels and insurance.

Abrahamson chose Paris to launch the five-year series, as it was one of the first cities to establish a formal dance institution. Subsequent dual-city tours are planned for Paris/Milan (2002), Milan/Copenhagen (2003), Copenhagen/Saint Petersburg (2004) and Saint Petersburg/London (2005), with a possible extension to Cuba.

Karen Dacko is a contributing dance editor of Pittsburgh Magazine.