Ballet benefit adds dancers from Norway, England and more

If the Indianapolis City Ballet hadn't staged world-class (and I'm deliberately and truthfully using that term) programs each of the last four years for its Evening with the Stars benefit shows, I'd be skeptical about the use of the "artists subject to change" notation in its announcement of this September's lineup.

But many of the world's top ballet dancers have come to town for each of those stunning shows and there's no reason to think this year will be any different.

Among the companies represented this time around: American Ballet Theatre (Gillian Murphy and Cory Stearns), San Francisco Ballet (Yuan Yuan Tan and Damian Smith), Berlin Ballet (Elisa Carrillo Cabrera and Mikhail Kaniskin) and, a favorite from the past, Stuttgart Ballet (Alicia Amatriain and Jason Reilly).

New to the Murat stage Sept. 7 will be dancers from Norwegian National Ballet and England National Ballet as well as Demitra Bereveskos, an Indy prodigy now studying in New York.

We may not have a full-time, world-class professional ballet troupe (yet). But, once a year, we have one of the best ballet evenings on the planet. Anyone with any interest in dance should be looking forward to this one, too.

Your thoughts?