Dance Theater

Tickets to three mid-February Baltimore performances by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater go on sale Sunday, but a four-week residency here by the acclaimed company, originally scheduled to begin this month, has been delayed until April, company officials said yesterday.The performances at the Morris A. Mechanic Theatre Feb. 14, 15 and 16 -- which will kick off the company's 1991 North American tour -- were conceived as the culmination of a monthlong residency that was to have begun next week.

THE ALVIN AILEY American Dance Theater performed before a sellout crowd at the Mechanic Theater last night in what appeared to be the perfect kickoff to a three-year residency in Maryland.After an enthusiastic audience gave the dancers a five-minute standing ovation, nearly 500 of the company's staunchest supporters, who had paid from $100 to $250 a ticket for the evening, retired to the Omni Hotel for some dining, dancing and all-around celebrating.The Valentine's Day party marked the beginning of a fund-raising campaign by the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater Foundation of Maryland, the local group that hopes to raise $2.5 million to support the company's many workshops and performances in the state during the next three years.

Los Angeles--"Peter Jennings Reporting: From the Heart of Harlem" is neither first-rate Jennings nor first-rate reporting.The ABC news special, which airs at 8 tonight on WJZ-TV (Channel 13), tries to chronicle the financial struggle this year of the Dance Theater of Harlem. It's an important struggle of considerable resonance. And ABC tells it with some sensitivity.But, overall, the hour has the feeling of a story that didn't quite work out as planned and a storyteller huffing and puffing to try to make it into something it's not.For those unfamiliar with the Dance Theater of Harlem, it is an African-American dance troupe that for about 20 years has been doing wonderful work onstage and quietly changing a widely held bias that black dancers are somehow less capable of ballet than white dancers.

Masculinity of dance The lowdown -- It's a man's world at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County this week. The Edgeworks Dance Theater all-male ensemble will present "Project: Cold Case," an installment in the company's Negro Dance Theater Project. The predominantly African-American ensemble hopes to draw its audience out of prejudice and fear by exploring black masculinity and identity on stage. If you go -- The performance starts at 8 p.m. Wednesday in the University of Maryland, Baltimore County Theatre, 1000 Hilltop Circle.

TONIGHT, when the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performs at a sold-out gala fund-raiser at the Morris A. Mechanic Theatre, supporters will toast the evening as a prelude to the company's residency in Maryland. They will also cross their fingers that they can pull it off.Assembling a successful residency will depend on the generosity of public and private sources of money during precarious economic times. The prospect of losing grants and dancing dates to the internationally famous dance troupe also leaves some Baltimore dancers nervous about the residency's effect on the local, struggling dance scene.

Those willing to drive, or take the train, to nearby cities can avail themselves of great dance this fall. Here are some of the best offerings:WASHINGTON*Once again the Kennedy Center has a great lineup of ballet companies scheduled for the '91-'92 season. Ballet West is at the Opera House Oct. 8-13, followed by the Kirov Ballet Oct. 15-17. Pacific Northwest Ballet takes up residence Jan. 28 to Feb. 2, with Dance Theater of Harlem in March 13-29. The Royal Danish Ballet closes the series with performances June 16-21.

NOW OR NEVER Explore the culture of Taiwan at the program "Lion Dance and Drums," presented by the Hung-Sheng Lion Dance Theater of Taiwan, Saturday at Towson University's Stephens Hall Theatre. Costumed members of the troupe will present acrobatics, dancing, rhythmic drumming and more. Acts will include "Glowing Night Dragon," "Walking Lion Gong and Drum Dance" and "Grab the Green," lion dances, dragon dances, temple rituals and more. "Lion Dance and Drums" takes place at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Towson University, Stephens Hall Theatre, 8000 York Road, Towson.

Four years after Baltimore's Alvin Ailey Dance Theater Foundation presented its first performance, members of the cultural community are struggling to find ways to salvage bits of the internationally acclaimed ensemble's presence in Maryland.The foundation, created to bring New York's Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater here for performances and to develop outreach programs including summer dance camps, last month quietly folded -- director-less and in debt.Now, leaders of local arts circles are looking for ways to save the summer camps.

The Columbia Festival of the Arts returns for a third summer with an11-day program of music, art and dance opening with a performance bythe Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and closing with renowned flutist James Galway playing with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.The festival will run June 27 through July 7 in a dozen county locations. It will showcase 65 events by 32 performing groups and more than 50 artisans, seven visual arts exhibits and several classes and workshops.Last year's event brought 30,000 people, with a third from the Baltimore and Washington areas.

Plagued by financial problems, the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater Foundation of Maryland, which brought world-class modern dance to Baltimore and introduced thousands of children to dance, has shut down.The foundation's death means the famed New York dance company will no longer perform annually in Baltimore and could end the acclaimed Ailey summer camps for disadvantaged youth at Morgan State and Frostburg State universities."What we found was that the private sector support wasn't available," said Richard Hackney, the foundation's board chairman.