American Ballet Theatre

American Ballet Theatre Where: Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Costa Mesa When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday; 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday Tickets: $16 to $115 Information: (714) 556-2787 or http://www.scfta.org

Frederic Franklin Dancer helped popularize modern ballet in U.S. Frederic Franklin, 98, a British-born dancer who helped popularize modern ballet in the United States, died Saturday at a Manhattan, N.Y., hospital of complications from pneumonia, according to his partner, William Ausman. Franklin last appeared with the American Ballet Theatre at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts three years ago - as a friar in "Romeo and Juliet. " "He was a seminal figure in the ballet world," said the company's artistic director, Kevin McKenzie.

They came, they saw, they got culture. An A-plus list of celebrities and others turned up to fill 62 tables at a post-performance party for the American Ballet Theatre on Tuesday night at the Shrine Auditorium. "They say we did an incredible job this year," said Judy Ovitz, one of four gala co-chairman, without a trace of conceit.

Choreographer Twyla Tharp, whose work spans ballet, modern dance, jazz and Broadway, is to receive a lifetime achievement honor during this year's Tribeca Film Festival. Tharp is scheduled to receive the honor at the annual Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards, to be held in New York on April 26. One of the most prolific choreographers working today, Tharp has created stage pieces for her own dance company, American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet and many other major dance organizations around the world.  The awards organizers said in a statement that "through dance, she has created her own language and pushed the boundaries of our notions of movement for the past 50 years.

On a recent Sunday morning, at an hour when many a teenager is still prone in bed, Adam Bernstein, 15, and Eli Gruska, 13, were lying face down on the floor of a Los Angeles ballet studio. Both boys would soon be heading to New York City for the biggest ballet competition in the country. They and the others in this all-boys class were awaiting instructions from Marat Daukayev, former principal dancer withRussia'sfamed Kirov Ballet (now the ballet of the Mariinsky Theatre). Daukayev begins his boys' class with sets of push-ups, not pliés.

Igor Youskevitch, 82, a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre known for his steps in such classical ballets as "Giselle." A gymnast before he became a dancer, Youskevitch was born in Kiev in what is now Ukraine and moved to Belgrade with his family to escape the Russian Revolution. In 1934 he joined Les Ballets de Paris and four years later danced with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, which moved to New York during World War II. Youskevitch became a U.S.

Sallie Wilson, a leading dancer with American Ballet Theatre best known as a protegee of master psychological- ballet choreographer Antony Tudor, died Sunday at her home in New York City. She was 76. Wilson died of lung and brain cancer, according to Diana Byer, artistic director of the New York Theatre Ballet, where Wilson had served as ballet mistress for the last 20 years. Wilson's nearly four-decade association with Tudor was by any measure tumultuous. He routinely insulted her and belittled her abilities but also asked her to continue to teach other dancers his works after she left American Ballet Theatre in 1980.

JUST hours before her first performance anywhere in more than 20 years, former ballet star Gelsey Kirkland is onstage at the Metropolitan Opera House, not only practicing her own moves but coaching American Ballet Theatre principal Irina Dvorovenko.

American Ballet Theatre and "Raymonda" seem to have a long-term, if somewhat on-again-off-again, relationship. But Martine van Hamel remains a constant--rightly. She was gratifyingly visible for the latest incarnation of the excerpted Petipa-Glazunov staple, first danced in Costa Mesa in December and presented Thursday at the Shrine Auditorium.

A disturbing vision of women being controlled by men, followed by a series of dances exalting them: It was a strange mix of repertory that American Ballet Theatre chose for its opening Tchaikovsky program Wednesday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. James Kudelka's aptly titled "Cruel World" preceded a series of three showpiece pas de deux and the final act of "The Sleeping Beauty." ABT turns to another fairy tale with Ben Stevenson's "Cinderella" today through Sunday.

In a spacious dance studio at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, Benjamin Millepied, sporting a full beard and new wedding ring, kept springing up from his chair to experiment on his own body while figuring out the intricacies of a virtuosic duet between two of his male dancers. "Try this," he told them and dropped to the floor into a bent-kneed, one-armed plank position that allowed him to do "10 seconds of abs. " A few minutes later, he gave the thumbs-up to a capoeria-like spin on the forearms that one of the dancers attempted and brought a gasp from Millepied's mother, visiting from Bordeaux, France.

On a recent Sunday morning, at an hour when many a teenager is still prone in bed, Adam Bernstein, 15, and Eli Gruska, 13, were lying face down on the floor of a Los Angeles ballet studio. Both boys would soon be heading to New York City for the biggest ballet competition in the country. They and the others in this all-boys class were awaiting instructions from Marat Daukayev, former principal dancer withRussia'sfamed Kirov Ballet (now the ballet of the Mariinsky Theatre). Daukayev begins his boys' class with sets of push-ups, not pliés.

American Ballet Theatre Where: Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Costa Mesa When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday; 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday Tickets: $16 to $115 Information: (714) 556-2787 or http://www.scfta.org

"Imagine a fish out of water," instructs choreographer Alexei Ratmansky to the American Ballet Theatre dancers portraying the 13 captive maidens in his new production of Stravinsky's "The Firebird. " Mesmerized by Kaschei, the evil sorcerer, they flop around as he zaps them with his wicked energy. Speaking in a hushed voice with a soft Russian accent, Ratmansky, working in one of ABT's no-frills Manhattan studios, conjures up traffic patterns for the corps de ballet, who promptly obey directions.

The arts world craves star power. Locally, we're covered. Opera? No problem — Plácido. Classical music? Dudamel. Dance? There's ... well, anyone there? Anyone at all? This s explains why perhaps the most important dance figure of the past quarter of a century in Southern California is largely unknown. She's not a dancer — in point of fact, she hasn't been en pointe in half a century. Instead, Judy Morr occupies a comfortably cluttered and modest office, basking happily in as little attention as she can possibly get, quietly programming dance, especially ballet, for as many people she can get to come see it. She is backed by worldwide contacts, an up-to-the-minute knowledge of hot versus not and, most important, the considerable resources of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, which turns 25 this month.

On a brisk January afternoon, there's an air of high spirits as dozens of American Ballet Theatre's dancers and staff gather in the largest studio of the company's Lower Manhattan headquarters. For two hours, as they run through ABT's newest full-length ballet, "The Bright Stream," bravura mixes with hilarity, as virtuoso turns alternate with comic vignettes. Numerous characters not usually found on the ABT stage — a tractor driver, a milkmaid and the denizens of a 1930s Soviet agricultural collective — express themselves with individuality and distinctive styles.

The moon rose again over the American Ballet Theatre "Swan Lake" on Friday in the Shrine Auditorium--that same gigantic harvest moon that had been so conspicuously inconstant in its placement and even presence during the first performances of this new production in Costa Mesa last December. Mikhail Baryshnikov seems now to have determined that the moon should rise behind (not inside) the sunken cathedral and reappear as an ominous vision in the ballroom scene.

"Black Swan," the new psycho-sexual thriller set in the world of ballet, follows the downward emotional spiral of a young dancer whose inability to separate art and life leads to horrific and bloody consequences. The movie, directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Natalie Portman, is seen as a top awards contender. Critics have been sharply divided, with some praising the extreme depiction of lunacy while others have been turned off by the same. "Black Swan" takes a wildly subjective approach to the heroine's descent into madness.