Years ago, at a professional baseball game in Atlanta, Georgia, noting that I live in New York a woman asked me, "Are you a fan of the Yankees or the Mets?" "I am a fan of the ballet," I replied.

This isn't really true. I am truly a fan of New York City Ballet, of Balanchine and Robbins. I am no dance aficionado. Other companies and choreographers I've seen repeatedly include Merce Cunningham, Pina Bausch, and William Forsythe. But I'm certainly less a fan of Dance with a capital D than I am a fan of certain dancers, companies, and choreography.

So I went to see American Ballet Theater. They perform their autumn season at City Center, an old city-owned performing arts theater in midtown. It's a nice old hall, with a shallow orchestra section and an even shallower stage, rather intimate. I was interested to go to this performance because they were performing Balanchine's Theme and Variations. I know this piece from NYCB where it serves as the final movement of a longer work Balanchine created much later, Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3. Theme and Variations is one of those bravura works that draws gasps and mid-dance applause from the audience. It's fantastic and shows off the dancers beautifully.

Unfortunately, the dancers I saw perform this at ABT were not quite up to the beauty of the choreography. The girl, Michele Wiles, seemed off-balance and held down by gravity. She seemed to be flapping her arms at times to lift herself off the stage. The boy, David Hallberg, was much better. He danced with much more passion and vigor, not to mention technique. The most interesting part, for me, though, was seeing this performed on a much smaller stage than the State Theater where City Ballet performs. It changed the whole tenor of the pageantry of the piece. It culminates in a procession of the dancers that on the larger stage is quite grand. On the smaller stage--where Balanchine choreographed it and where it was first performed--it has much more artifice or pretense; here are the dancers lining up as if into a grand procession. A completely different effect--just as powerful, if not more so for achieving such artistic heights with less resources.

Next up on the program was the pas de deux from Le Corsaire. The choreography is Petipa's and again features many bravura moments--lots and lots of spinning! It was performed by a wildly attractive pair of dancers, the extremely manly and extremely sexy Jose Manuel Carreño, and the pretty, perfectly proportioned beauty that is Paloma Herrera. I joined right in with the ABT regulars who showered these two with bravos--it was a thrilling performance.

The last piece, alas, was not so thrilling. In fact, I thought it was a complete bore. A new piece by Christopher Wheeldon, the it-boy of the choreography world right now, though God alone knows why. Called VIII, it tells the story, or attempts to, of Henry VIII, his wife Katherine and his next wife Anne Boleyn. There were moments of beauty in the dancing, but overall I kept feeling like there was nothing to look at. And then when there was something, it was usually ugly. I got something out of it, however, in hearing Benjamin Britten's Variations of a Theme of Frank Bridge, Op. 10 for the first time. I've never been a huge Britten fan, but this music was so delicate, serious, and moving. I kept thinking throughout the ballet how much I would love to hear this music without all this distracting nonsense going on up on the stage. So I will go and buy a recording of it, and thank Mr. Wheeldon for bringing it to my attention.