Considering that this is ballet taken with beer, wine, gin-and-tonic or whatever you're having yourself at the Opera House, the Cork City Ballet Spectacular 2002 offers a cocktail in which skill is blended with excitement.
Beginning with a stately version of the Albinoni Adagio choreographed by director Alan Foley and danced by Foley partnering Anika Hendrikx and Jane Kelleghan, the first programme has a contemporary flair which culminates in Jane Kellaghan's own work Liquid Murmur.
The progression to this point is interrupted only by the immaculate precision of Russian dancers Nikita Shcheglov and Veronika Ivanova in Tchaikovsky's showcase pas de deux.
The mixing of convention is a little uneasy and although the contrasts are deliberate, Lisa Ritchie's narrative piece, Return to Forever, danced to Freddie Mercury doesn't have time to establish itself.
The strong ensemble patterns of the Kelleghan work - danced to the film score of Tan Dun (of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame) and assisted by an attractive lighting plot - are fashioned with a meticulous classicism which also serves as a balletic overture to the second programme.
This, billed as extracts from Le Corsair, seems at first glance to be an ambitious proposal for a small company, but Cork City Ballet conjures up a corps de ballet to support the guest artists in a series of divertissements frothing with charm and professionalism.
Foley's choreography is based on Marius Petipa and allows individual characteristics - and personality - to enhance the dazzling sequences.
Inevitably the fouettes and entrechats were interrupted by applause, although the house was almost silenced by the brilliance of Nikita Shcheglov, who orbits the stage in a display of leaping, galactic spirals.
Ballet Spectacular 2002 is at the Town Hall, Galway, today (091 569777), the University of Limerick Concert Hall tomorrow (061 331549), and at the Olympia Theatre, Dublin, on Saturday March 15th (01-6777744)
