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The March 6 program, Black Swan and More,was a puzzling title, doubtless used to attract dance lovers prone to accept cliches. Anyone knowing Michael Lowe is aware his career was not built upon the Russian staples, if indeed he ever danced Siegfried, de Brianne, Albrecht or Desire. Who knows who was trying to sell what?

Such comment is not intended to denigrate the classical contributions to the program, only two numbers, with five other pieces, including a cluster of four, part of the Isadora Duncan Award winner Lowe choreographed for Oakland Ballet, said accolade unmentioned in the program. Titled Chuntian or In The Spring, the excerpts provided less experienced dancers,as well as professionals, the pleasure of appearing in Lowe’s beguiling pieces notable for their accents.The Upstream excerpt with Genevieve Custer, Maria Lamonce and Devon La Russa gave Peninsula theatre goers a taste of the elegant finishes Lowe creates. This stylish sheen was marked in Joseph Copley and Phaedra Jarrett’s pas de deux titled Jutze, and Racing Horses/Splashing Fish, the quartet with Copley, Carlos Venture, Ethan White and Erin Yarborough.

The classic excerpts included not only the Black Swan Pas de Deux but Giselle's Act II pas de deux, both representing the careful, obviously inspired teaching of Ayako Takahashi with Shoichiro Sadamatsu as guest artist and partner in both classics. Sadamatsu, a former Prix de Lausanne winner, is obviously very experienced and presents a very classical deportment for both Albrecht and Siegfried. He partnered Mariko Takahashi in Giselle and Amy Marie Briones in the Black Swan pas de deux . The relative shallowness of the stage and lack of appropriate lighting provided some problems, but the two young women demonstrated, unequivocally, their fine schooling and talent.

Had Takahashi enjoyed a more ghostly light plot, one could believe her wraithlike state, even with seeing three other Giselles recently with San Francisco Ballet; her port de bras managed to be well and fully phrased, and her technique totally adequate to the demands. Briones, still in her early teens, demonstrated phenomenal balance and endless reserves of strength. Her Odile currently is a shadow of the temptress, but Briones can deliver double fouettes on command, if her opening for the fouette whip is too broad to maintain the desired unmoving stage position.

Anandha Ray believes in a full exploration of an emotional theme, often derived from specific personal experience, frequently the genesis of works by modern choreographers. From Heaven, danced to the country folk sounds of The Tin Hat Trio, is one such. Given the grief some American women experience today because of the US involvement in Iraq, it is not ill placed, if Ray’s specifics stem from a different source. As a modern choreographer, she displays quite a bit of floor work and intricate lifts which are absorbing to watch. Her problem is that the exploration in pas de deux form is over long. She might consider the same theme with more than one couple.

Ballet Master Mario Alonso designs costumes as well as choreographs, the costumes earning an Isadora Duncan Dance Award citations. Mio, his pas de deux for Erin Yarborough and Ethan White,provided opportunities for Amy Fitterer to display her piano skills and Dominique Benino a rather thin soprano in the upper reaches using a Puccini aria from Madame Butterfly. It also gave a contemporary classical balance to the other two pas de deux on the program.

The beginning and the finale on the program testified to the durability of good choreography mounted on the bodies of dancers new to their assignments. Carlos Carvajal’s Faustian Dances to Guonod Baccanale provided a mild, gently cheeky view on music identified with the high flying Lavrovsky Bolshoi orgy which made such an impression when that Moscow tour de force appeared in the United States on its first tour. Carvajal gives the work a gentle spring afternoon twist, but obviously something professionals would enjoy dancing. The various numbers could enjoy greater technical embellishments without disturbing the ballet’s overall shape.

Old Records, Viktor Kabaniaev’s invention for Moving Arts company in Walnut Creek, uses old 33-1/3 records and a record player on the diagonal upstage center as a ploy for eight variations and Frank Sinatra’s rendering of My Way. Moving Arts has danced it in Eastern Europe with considerable success. Assembled by a Russian graduate of the Vaganova Institute in St. Petersburg, Kabanaiaev has wielded it into a quintessential American ballet with soft shoes and an interplay of musical choices embracing Grace, Liberty Vance, Foxy Lady, Mombo Italiano and Edith Piaf’s Non Rien de Rien. It was a tight ending for the afternoon, and, happily, senior theater goers remarked favorably to me about the program.

The production staff of Peninsula Ballet Theatre could use a program proof reader and specifics in place of terms like "award winning."