Ballet

"I'm gonna live forever. I'm gonna learn how to fly High!" - from "Fame," by Michael Gore and Dean Pitchford The biggest mystery about Bilal Smith isn't how he managed to get accepted into the Baltimore School for the Arts' highly selective dance program when he'd never taken a movement class in his entire life. The deeper question is how a kid from Baltimore's inner city first envisioned ballet as a potential career choice. Bilal, now 16 and a junior, grew up in a tough neighborhood in which residents might tolerate break-dance or hip-hop artists, but not guys in leotards.

When founding director Edward Stewart and the board changed the name of Ballet Theatre of Annapolis to Ballet Theatre of Maryland in 2001, they envisioned a professional company of national renown that would "represent and service the whole state," said artistic director Dianna Cuatto. This year the group is "taking steps to fulfill that vision" by creating partnerships across the state. Maryland's premier professional ballet company and dance school starts its 31st season with plans to perform in venues outside Annapolis and conduct classes beyond Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts.

Shannon Twenter bowed one arm into the shape of a handle, tipped over far to one side, and made like a little beer stein, short and stout. Inside the Riverside Park Pool, the 19-member Milkmaid Brigade from Lichtenstein mimic her every movement as best they can while treading water. Then, on cue, the milkmaids began simultaneously backstroking, a few with yellow scarf "pigtails" trailing behind them. It was almost time for the Flurry Family to crash-land in Peru after trips to the Russian Gulag and Japan, and the milkmaids didn't want to delay their plane.

Ballet Theatre of Maryland marked its 30th anniversary last weekend with a program that looked at its beginnings, its present and its future, creating a performance covering dance forms from classic to modern. The company was founded in 1978 by Edward Stewart, who served as director until his death in 2002. The program opened with a commissioned work that debuted in December 2007, Celtic Book of Days, featuring music created and performed by Maryland resident Maggie Sansone with three musicians.

CAROLYN GEORGE D'AMBOISE, 81 Photographer, ballet and Broadway dancer Carolyn George d'Amboise, a photographer and former ballet and Broadway dancer married to New York City Ballet star Jacques d'Amboise, died Tuesday at the couple's Manhattan home after a long struggle with primary lateral sclerosis, a rare neuromuscular disease, her husband said. A native of Dallas, she started her career in Broadway musicals in the 1940s as Carolyn George. She joined the San Francisco Ballet in the late 1940s, and the New York City Ballet in 1952.

The Howard County Library will hold its 12th gala fundraiser, "Evening in the Stacks: Along the Silk Road," from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. Feb. 28 at the east Columbia branch library, 6600 Cradlerock Way. Manil Suri, author of The Death of Vishnu and The Age of Shiva, will speak. An auction, belly dancing and other entertainment, and a 50/50 raffle are planned. Tickets are $100, available online ( www.hclibrary.org) and at library branches. Proceeds will benefit the library's educational initiatives, including Dogs Education and Assisting Readers, Teen Time, Cultural Connections and Kindergarten Here We Come!

Dianna Cuatto's award-winning ballet Excalibur, which premiered in 2006, is being readied for what promises to be a spectacular return to Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts later this month. Exciting as it is to see Ballet Theatre of Maryland dancers perform at Maryland Hall, it is more dazzling up close to watch these dancers in rehearsal at BTM's studio in the basement of the Conte Building in Annapolis. Male dancers lifted their partners high enough to appear as if the ballerinas' heads nearly touched the ceiling.

The first time Jennifer Muccioli performed in The Nutcracker ballet she was 6 years old. As a member of the snow scene, she dreamed of a day when she would have a more prominent role, she said. "I always wanted to do bigger parts in the ballet," said Jennifer, 14, a ninth-grader at Fallston High. "I often thought about what it would be like to get to do that." After a seven-year hiatus, she is returning to the Lyric Opera House stage in Baltimore as a butterfly and a member of the Russian Variation, said Jennifer, who lives in Bel Air. She will be performing as a children's cast member of the Moscow Ballet's traveling tour of the Great Russian Nutcracker.

Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky never quite got the whole self-assurance thing. The composer typically disparaged his own music at one point or another, as he did in 1892, after finishing a ballet that he called "infinitely poorer than The Sleeping Beauty," which he had written a couple of years earlier. "I have no doubt about it," he wrote a friend. To another, he just said: "This old chap's getting worn out." What Tchaikovsky didn't know was that he had composed what would become the most widely beloved and performed of all ballets - The Nutcracker.

The chamber orchestra of Oakland Mills High School, 9410 Kilimanjaro Road, Columbia, will present a concert to benefit the WBAL Kids Campaign at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 5 in the school auditorium. The concert will feature the OMHS chamber orchestra, musicians from the Wilde Lake High School Chamber Orchestra, singers from the Annapolis Chorale and area soloists. The concert is appropriate for children and adults. Tickets are $10; students ages 11 and younger admitted free with a paying adult. Information: Philip Hale, 410-313-6945.