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[dirac]

A review of Company C Contemporary Ballet by Mary Ellen Hunt in The San Francisco Chronicle.

Friday also marked the company's premiere of Peter Anastos' tribute to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, "Footage." Anastos founded the enormously popular Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, which perhaps explains the slightly madcap, burlesque edge to "Footage," although what the ballet had to do with Astaire and Rogers other than evening gowns and tailcoats was unclear......

Also on the program was Alexandre Proia's pretty though unremarkable "A World to Come" for two couples set to music by David Lang and Kameron Ince.

[dirac]

Sergei Polunin takes his leave of the Royal Ballet.

The Telegraph

“This is a total bolt out of the blue. Sergei was rehearsing right up until today. We are upset, but more than anything we are shocked,” a source said.

"He has never suggested that he was unhappy. Today he spoke to Monica Mason and simply said that he wanted to resign...."

The Arts Desk

If Polunin chooses to fly so quickly from his nest, he would not be the first male prodigy to do so. Quitting the nest in youth is much more common - and successful - a step for male dancers than female. Among the Royal Ballet's own top male stars, Carlos Acosta quit his home company in Cuba at 18 and Johan Kobborg left the Royal Danish Ballet. Famously Baryshnikov and Nureyev both defected from the Kirov in their early twenties.

[dirac]

A social pages item on the San Francisco Ballet gala from The Huffington Post, with photos.

Artistic Director and Principal Choreographer Helgi Tomasson, dubbed "one of the spectacular success stories stories of the arts in America" by the New York Times, mingled with Dede Wilsey, O.J. Shansby and other usual socialite suspects as grand benefactors dined in the Rotunda. Third Eye Blind frontman Stephan Jenkins, Google It Girl Marissa Mayer and Yahoo founder Jerry Yang also made appearances.

[dirac]

A horse ballet and other festivities are planned to celebrate the tricentenary of Frederick the Great.

Too ostentatious even for the king, the palace was used for guests. A mega-exhibition called “Friederisiko,” extending over 70 newly restored rooms, will present Frederick as a risk-taker. It runs from April 28 to Oct. 28. For information and tickets, go to http://www.friederisiko.de.

Frederick treated his favorite sister to a sumptuous dressage display with 200 extravagantly adorned horses at Sanssouci in 1750, accompanied by music and dance. The palace is reviving the king’s “carousel” on four nights in July.

[dirac]

Iain Webb will dance with his company this weekend.

Webb, 52, who danced with the Royal in the ’80s and ’90s retired from the company in 1996. He has performed only once with the Sarasota Ballet since taking over its directorship five years ago. He and Kobborg, 39, the Danish-born star who is currently a principal with the Royal, have been friends for two decades.