The ten-dollar temptation.

NOSTALGIA definitely has something to do with the innovative six-day Fall for Dance Festival, which is destined to pack New York's City Center through Oct. 3. Says Arlene Shuler, the venerable institution's president and chief executive officer: "This was my professional home for so long when I was with The Joffrey Ballet. It's an incredible place. and bringing in a new generation will be a great challenge." Shuler's greatest challenge, however, may be keeping disappointed ticket buyers from revolting. For this new venture, Schuler and her artistic advisor Elise Bernhardt (former executive director of the downtown arts center, The Kitchen) have rounded up thirty companies and soloists, all, in Miss Jean Brodie's immortal words, "the creme de la creme." They are dancing in six nights of craftily contrasted programs. All tickets are $10.

That's right, $10--the cost of a movie in Manhattan, less than a pair of tights, less than an artfully garnished soyburger. The festival's mix is indecently rich. Representing the ballet world are Dance Theatre of Harlem in George Balanchine's Agon, American Ballet Theatre's Paloma Herrera and Jose Manuel Carreno in the Diane and Acteon pas de deux, the Boston Ballet in Jorma Elo's Plan to B, and Peter Boal dancing the solo Balanchine created for Paul Taylor in the 1959 Episodes--premiered, Shuler reminds us, on the City Center stage.

For classics of another ilk, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company offers the witty How to Pass Kick Fall and Run; the Martha Graham Company dispatches the Adam-and-Eve saga Embattled Garden; and Bill T. Jones reprises Continuous Replay. If, in early October, you're also looking for Trisha Brown, Paul Taylor, Susan Marshall, Rennie Harris, Elizabeth Streb, Ronald K. Brown, Eiko and Koma, Parul Shah & Dancers, or Noche Flamenca, they'll be hanging on West 55th Street.

Money has something to do with it, of course. Although presenters everywhere are sensitive to rising ticket prices (London's Royal Opera House has drastically reduced tariffs for most Monday night performances this season), Shuler, who assumed her post in June 2003, reveals a more complex motive for founding the festival. An entire generation, she believes, has grown up in ignorance of City Center and of what it has meant to the arts in New York and in the United States. Schuler hopes to heal the growing schism between "uptown" and "downtown" audiences and their preferences in entertainment.

At an earlier stage in its history, City Center almost defined "midtown." "Then, New York City Ballet, New York City Opera, and The Joffrey all moved away," says Shuler, "and the place went into a decline. At one point, during the tenure of my predecessor, Judith Daykin, this place was lit for no more than ten weeks of bookings a year. Most of the artists in Fall for Dance have never performed on this stage, and we want to enable them to perform here for a wider audience.

"At the same time," Shuler continues, "we've got to raise our visibility among audiences to where it was in the 1960s. City Center is the place to go."

To pave the way, Shuler will introduce outreach programs for Fall for Dance, a series of master classes in collaboration with several local colleges including Hunter College and Barnard College, and pre-performance talks. She will also launch a dance subscription series this season; and, best of all, she is aiming to make Fall for Dance an annual event.

Declares Shuler: "I want people to get excited."