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Back to the Magic Toy Store, Nikolai Kabaniaev has taken Respighi’s arrangement of Rossini’s post-operatic tunes to tell his own version of Leonid Massine’s Le Boutique Fantasque. He has managed to accomplish this with a miniature cast with nine adults and two talented school dancers, Amy Swanson and Grace Grant; Lauren Jonas and Byron Heinreich do double duty as the parents of first, the little boy desiring the Soldier doll, Jenkyns Pelaez; the young girl who aims to acquire the Ballerina doll, Tina Kay Bohnstedt. They are thwarted by the waiter, David Fonnegra, the devilish dolls, Edward Stegge and Lauren Main de Lucia, plus Mayo Sugano as the blonde-wigged Fairy doll. Viktor Kabaniaev danced the dotty Store Owner with enormous gusto - the Kirov instilled its mime tradition in the choreographer’s twin, also a choreographer.

The tale is accomplished by cubicles which move around freely and are used to foil the couples with their children. Velcro contributes to the mayhem for it is utilized to attach the Ballerina’s tutu. Jonas and Heinreich do a quick change of gender roles, playing the switch for all its worth and sending the audience into appreciative chuckles. De Lucia and Stegge are suitably agile and devlish and Sugano’s Fairy is appropriately empty-headed; Fonnegra is all too ready to dish up a cocktail and a spare cigarette.
 

Pelaez and Bohnstedt partner warmly at Soldier and Ballerina, he suitably stalwart, she appropriately romantic. Both dance with charming rapport with each child until it dawns on them what the choice implies.

Diablo Ballet manages to provide a program which entertains and displays individual talents; even though chamber-sized ballet companies have to struggle for it, this one has been a haven for story telling as well as experimentation. Diablo premieres Once Upon a Ballroom, Nikolai Kabaniaev’s take on noted operatic ballroom music, in March. May will see both Kabaniaev as well as Bohnstedt essaying works under the title Jazz Fever, followed by Nikolai Kabanaiev’s version of Cinderella.