Even with holiday exile, ballet moves up

The grinch that stole Christmas this year was the Wang Center for the Performing Arts, which evicted Boston Ballet from the Wang Theatre for its annual run of ''The Nutcracker." Instead, the Wang decided to present the more lucrative Radio City Rockettes, leaving the company to dance the moneymaker that keeps it afloat at the far smaller Colonial Theatre, where, even if every ticket is sold for every show, it still stands to lose millions.

The blow to Boston Ballet came just as the company was reaching new heights. Its director, Mikko Nissinen, is the most gifted leader the 41-year-old troupe has had in terms of both artistic and administrative skills. (Former director Violette Verdy was the company's greatest teacher and coach but had limited interest in tackling its Byzantine bureaucracy.)

To Nissinen's credit, he used the eviction as an excuse for a tighter, more cohesive ''Nutcracker" than the previous production, which was the work of many hands over several decades. But he shouldn't be put in the chronic position of turning adversity into advantage.

Nissinen has been able to lure top-notch dancers including Cuban ballerina Lorna Feijo and her husband, Nelson Madrigal, to the company. Feijo triumphed in the ''Swan Lake" that closed the ballet's season in May; her every step, every shape, had meaning and clarity.

Cuba also figured into Jos Mateo's Ballet Theatre performances earlier this year. Mateo was born on the island, and the program of new dances he dubbed ''The Cuban Condition" was more personal than most of his beautifully crafted neoclassical fare. Especially heart-rending was ''Escape," set to a score by Cuban composer Leo Brouwer and full of the hopelessness of confinement. Mateo's choreography for this program was a statement of growth and a willingness to make public a certain vulnerability.

As part of a deal to import one major classical troupe a year for five years, the Wang and the Bank of America Celebrity Series brought in the Bolshoi Ballet. The Russians' production of ''Don Quixote" was spectacular and highly energized. Maria Alexandrova, in the leading role of Kitri, triumphed over the considerable technical challenges to the point that she looked like she craved more.

Alas, ''Don Q" was the second program the Bolshoi danced in Boston during this run. The first, ''Raymonda," is less familiar, which hurt at the box office, and altogether a lesser ballet although quite fun with the right cast. Boston got the wrong one, led by a tired-looking Nadezhda Gracheva. This has partly to do with Boston's lack of clout in scheduling big-time touring ballet companies: We've been off the radar too long.

The other presenter that kept dance alive in Boston this year was World Music, which staged events including an ever-more-popular flamenco festival. At the other end of the state, the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in the Berkshires continued to thrive under the leadership of Ella Baff, whose programming this year included the Mark Morris Dance Group, a perennial Pillow favorite, along with Israel's Batsheva Dance Company and CND2, a spinoff of Spain's National Dance Company. Both Spanish troupes are headed by Nacho Duato, one of the world's most in-demand choreographers. CND2 is a smart idea: With just a dozen dancers, it's easier to send on tour than a major classical troupe that typically has several times that number of performers.

Dance is generally associated with youth, and by the time they're 30, most dancers are contemplating their next careers. Not all of them, though. Mikhail Baryshnikov could probably stand still on a stage when he's 80 and be greeted with wild ovations. In his mid-50s, the world's most famous dancer still moves with uncanny grace and has not limited his vocabulary to cut out bravura steps. He can still jump. And in a performance in Boston Ballet's Grand Studio this year, the nuances of his dancing caused audiences to catch their breath just as they did a quarter-century ago.

Other ''mature" dancers and choreographers stood out this season. Summer Stages Dance, the excellent program that Amy Spencer and Richard Colton run at Concord Academy, presented ''Three Women Solo," with a trio of female dance legends -- Carmen de Lavallade, Sara Rudner, and Martine Van Hamel -- whose combined careers add up to more than a century. Also on the bill was Gus Solomons Jr., now 64. With age, these performers have become daring and liberated. They were a joy to watch.

Marcus Schulkind, who has been choreographing for more than three decades, most of that time in Boston, recently presented an evening of the superb solos for which he's known. The earliest of them was his 1977 signature piece, ''Job," which remains perpetually fresh. Schulkind no longer has his own company: It became too financially draining a venture. That such a talent can't get the necessary support to keep going is sad not only for him, but for his audience.

Globe correspondent Karen Campbell contributed to this report.