Ballet

Six dancers have joined Ballet Theater of Annapolis for the season: Dmitry Tuboltsev of the Bolshoi Ballet Grigorovich and the Moscow Theater Russian Ballet danced the lead role in BTA's new production of "Dracula," performed last month at the Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts. He trained at the Vaganova Academy, which is the school of the Leningrad Kirov Ballet, and was a prize winner in the 1993 International Ballet Competition.Benjamin Briones, who played Jonathan Harker in "Dracula," trained at the National School of Contemporary Dance and the National School of Classical Ballet in Mexico City.

LOS ANGELES -- Prince, the flamboyant rocker, composer and filmmaker, will enter the concert dance field in a collaboration with four American choreographers, providing music for a full-evening work for the Joffrey Ballet's 1992-'93 season, company artistic director Gerald Arpino announced yesterday.Titled "Billboards," the four-part ballet will premiere in Iowa City next January, but a pas de deux from it is scheduled to be danced in Los Angeles in May and June of this year.Former Pilobolus member Peter Pucci is creating the dance and the other choreographers -- Laura Dean, Charles Moulton and Margo Sappington -- have all made ballets for the Joffrey in the past.

'The Nutcracker'Where: Goucher College's Kraushaar Auditorium, Dulaney Valley Road, Towson.When: Fridays, Dec. 7 and 14, at 8 p.m.; Saturdays, Dec. 8 and 15, at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.; Sundays, Dec. 9 and 16, at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m.Tickets: $18 for matinee performances, $20 for evening performances. Senior, student and group discounts are available.Call: 576-2400. The Nutcracker ballet has always been associated with the magic of dreams come true. And for one 13-year-old dancer this year, the dream of being a ballerina is being realized.

The financially plagued Maryland Ballet has closed its dance school at 1014 Morton St. because of its inability to make its monthly rent as well as meet its payments for improvements to the building.Artistic director Phillip Carman is searching for another space to hold classes so that the school's 75 students do not fall behind in their training. Few refunds would be necessary because most students tended to pay their tuition each month, said cofounder and board member Daniel Kane."Closing wasn't a total surprise, although we had hoped to make it to June," Mr. Kane said.

Oakland Mills High School juniors Laurel Marsh and Alison Pie are producing a full-length dance performance that will be their culminating project in the county school system's Mentor Program.The production will be at 3 p.m. Feb. 27 at Slayton House in the Village of Wilde Lake. Proceeds will be donated to an AIDS charity.The 16-year-olds are working under the guidance of their dance teacher and mentor, Caryl Maxwell of the Ellicott City Ballet Guild.The performance will include excerpts from the classical ballets, "Swan Lake," "Giselle," "Parquita," "Sylvia" and "La Bayadere."

In a review Monday of the Ballet Theatre of Annapolis, dancer Ethel Leslie was misidentified.The Sun regrets the errors.The Ballet Theatre of Annapolis and the Annapolis Chorale joined their considerable talents last weekend to uplift their audience at the Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts in Annapolis. At the close of "The Eleventh Commandment," the ballet by artistic director Edward Stewart, the audience stood and applauded both the dancing and the music.Although "The Eleventh Commandment" was the dance that brought the audience to its feet, the strongest of the four diverse works shown by the company belonged to New York City choreographer Jennifer Muller, who set her contemporary dance, arm in arm in arm . . ."

The New York Times said in an editorial on Friday:Lights dimmed for a moment last night on Broadway, the theater world's way of honoring Jerome Robbins, one of the century's great choreographers. Robbins, who died in New York City on Wednesday at age 79, left his legendary imprint on every Broadway show he touched, on every ballet he crafted and on audiences who felt his untethered genius behind the athletic rumble in "West Side Story" or in "Watermill," a ballet executed with such exacting slowness that George Balanchine described it as being without time.

Maryland Public Television is giving a double present to lovers of ballet -- the best version ever of an oft-seen classic and a new edition of a rarely seen gem.First up, tonight at 9 o'clock on MPT, channels 22 and 67, is another running of Mikhail Baryshnikov's version of "The Nutcracker," a perfect 90 minutes for Christmas Eve.If you've seen this one before -- it was originally made for CBS but has become a PBS staple -- you know you won't mind seeing...

While an engaging work, Artistic Director Edward Stewart's "Snow White," wasn't always theatrically coherent. Several dramatic questions were left hanging in this new ballet, presented as the second act of Ballet Theatre of Annapolis' spring program, yet there were enough solid dancing and winsome performances by this personable company to offset any flawed logic or unique interpretation of the fairy tale.Mr. Stewart's enjoyable one-act ballet in six scenes with a lengthy prologue benefited from sophisticated staging, clever costuming (with more than a passing nod to Disney)

Jane Ward Murray, a dancer, teacher and ballet figure for five decades, ended her life Friday at her Roland Park home. She was 74. Known to many for her decade on the television program The Critics' Place, she had a lengthy career that began on the Broadway stage and included stints in local modeling and as a featured performer in an American Beer television commercial. She then taught ballet at the Peabody Institute and Goucher College for more than 20 years. Born Jane Ward in Baltimore, she began dancing at age 3. She studied with teacher Carol Lynn at her North Calvert Street studio, then attended a summer session at the School of American Ballet in New York, where instructors recognized her ability.