Every great dance company, even when it seems poised in perfect balance, needs constant renewal of both repertory and performers.

The heart of the classical repertory is the Tchaikovsky-Petipa 'Sleeping Beauty,' and no ballet is harder to get right.

After all these years of saying the same thing about the Alvin Ailey company - terrific dancers, awful repertory - I'm finally accepting the inevitable: I'm not going to change my mind, and they're not going to change their ways. And why should they, given their juggernaut success all over the world?

The early giants of modern dance - Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis - barely left traces of their art.

The eternal and uneasy relationship between ballet and modern dance endures, but radically altered in tone and intensity.

Without a Prospero-Caliban relationship to balance the Prospero-Ariel one, 'The Tempest' loses much of its resonance.