San Francisco Ballet opened its Programs 5 ("Lyric Voices") and 6 ("Space Between") last Wednesday and Friday nights at the Opera House. The two programs run in alternation through April 7, and both are well worth seeing.

A very happy audience jumped to their feet Saturday night as the curtain came down on "The Sleeping Beauty" at the SF Opera House, giving the ballerina, Sasha De Sola, an ecstatic, grateful, and well-deserved standing ovation.

Sean Dorsey Dance will be performing "Boys in Trouble" at Z Space from March 14-16, a show that celebrates the acclaimed company's 15th anniversary of dance performances.

San Francisco Ballet's second and third programs opened during the rains of last week and made many people glad they'd braved the downpours.

Out There goes out & about to arts & cultural events five nights out of seven most weeks. It's a good way to stay involved, be a part of the city, see different neighborhoods and get out of our own personal bubble.

"Jerome Robbins: A Life in Dance," published by Yale University Press as part of its "Jewish Lives" series, is no love letter.

San Francisco Ballet, our big league troupe, is finally back in the Opera House for the real dance season. They kicked off last Wednesday with a successful Gala, then the real opener on Friday: a boffo performance of "Don Quixote."

In 30 years of reviewing "The Nutcracker," with which San Francisco Ballet returned to the Opera House last Wednesday night, I've never seen such glorious dancing as they brought to the last act.

Tchaikovsky-savvy consumers will grock what's going on right from the cover of the new Paris Opera and Ballet pairing of Tchaikovsky's one-act opera "Iolanta" and two-act ballet "The Nutcracker" (BelAir).

Chita Rivera will be at it again at Feinstein's at the Nikko next week, singing songs and telling tales from throughout her career in a four-show run of her latest cabaret show (including afternoon matinees on Sat., & Sun., Nov. 10 & 11).

On the eve of this historic and Very Important Election, we can't say it better than Hans the Franz does with his spectacular outfit. He's out there in the Castro District streets, resplendent in his declamatory onesie, and it's all to get out the vote.

"Körper" played last weekend in Berkeley, where Cal Performances presented Sasha Waltz's masterpiece in Zellerbach Hall for the first time.

Choreographer and performer Monique Jenkinson, in the guise of her drag queen persona Fauxnique, and her longtime partner, electronic composer Marc Kate, will premier their first full collaboration, "Girl," at the Joe Goode Annex.

An excited crowd filled UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall last Friday night for the West Coast premiere of the Mark Morris Dance Group's "Pepperland."