"My partnering is more mutual than classical," she explained.

And speaking of partners, Adam always has a particular one by her side-costume designer Christine Darch. Darch has done the costumes for Adam's productions in San Francisco and around the country, and is married to composer Matthew Pierce who wrote the music for "Imaginal Disc," the first Adam/Darch collaboration and the one that originally piqued Andersen's interest.

"Since 'Imaginal Disc,' I always work with Christine," Adam said. "She's fun and she sees the world similar to me. We live in a similar paradigm."

Adam would welcome the opportunity to do more projects with Ballet Arizona in the future. "It's wonderful," she says about working with these dancers. "It's a beautiful, beautiful company. I'd love to work with them again."

Entrée: Shostakovich

Dinner is served!

Next on the plate is another original work, this one commissioned by Janice Montana, a supporter of the arts in Phoenix, New York and Rome, to commemorate the 100th birthday of Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich. Featuring the composer's preludes and fugues, the new dance, as yet untitled, was created by Ib Andersen and, like his previous "Mosaik," will feature not only his original choreography but also his original costume designs.

"He's always got something up his sleeve," said Carolyn Mitchell, Ballet Arizona's costume director whose daughter, Kendra Mitchell, is a dancer with the company. "But with Ib there's always a reason for it. It's always based on something."

This time the costumes are based on a crossed line pattern Andersen derived from the architecture of the Russian constructivism period of the early 1900s, which also inspires the choreography-an appropriate combination, considering world renowned Russian pianist Alexander Izbitser will be playing the music of Shostakovich.

Simple, flesh colored, or as Andersen says, "nude," leotards for the five women and unitards for the five men are crossed at the waist with an off center X pattern of two rich blue "straps."

Sounds easy, but all of the fabric had to be sent to Texas to be dyed and then repeatedly "washed" to fix the dyes so they would not bleed when laundered. Also, according to Mitchell, the angles of the blue lines have to be customized for each dancer to accommodate their bodies-with the goal of having them all appear identical.

"Ib wants the boys and girls to look the same-unisex," said Leonore Texidor, costume shop manager.

"Ib is always very simple," says Mitchell. Texidor quickly adds, "But simple is not always simple."

And it's not simply that set of clothes. Adam's and Darch's costume designs have not yet been revealed "before" press time and the raiments for "Raymonda," although rented for the production from a company in New York, pose challenges. Rented costumes, like the white jackets and tutus adorned with beadwork and fur, always create a lot of work in the costume room at Ballet Arizona.

"The company is so eclectic," Mitchell said. "We struggle with fitting the rented costumes to our dancers" because of the wide range of sizes in the company, especially among the female dancers. "The girls range from 5 foot 2 inches to 5 foot 10 1/2 inches," Mitchell explains.

"Giselle (Doepker) is so tall," Texidore said, "and the tutu is too short." Fitting the costume involves adding an extension and also a patch to cover a hole at the back that was created by adding the extension. "It's not often we get costumes that are the right size."

Dessert: Raymonda

Russian trained teacher and stager Olga Evreinoff, who is doing the "Raymonda" portion of the "Raymonda and Other Works" program, has worked with Ballet Arizona every year for the past six years, ever since her old friend Ib Andersen took over as artistic director of the company. For Andersen she has staged "Swan Lake" several times (complete and portions), "Sleeping Beauty" and "Paquita," and she plans to return in the fall to do "Don Quixote."

Coincidentally, Evreinoff also has a history with Adam-one that goes back to the mid 1980s.

"Olga was my teacher at the National Ballet School in Canada when I was about 16 years old," Adam said. Evreinoff remembers teaching Adam "for two years, grades 10 and 11. It was a good class."

Although they are doing separate pieces in the Ballet Arizona program and not actually working together, for Adam the experience of being part of the same show and rehearsing in the same building gives her a sense of reassuring reciprocity. Having been her student, Adam says "it's interesting to come full circle now and be working beside her. She's awesome."

Born in Prauge, trained in Russia, Evreinoff emigrated to the West, lived for a time in Canada and moved to the Netherlands in 1991. In 1978, she was a guest teacher at the Royal Danish Ballet and met "a young and promising dancer" by the name of Ib Andersen. They both went on to work in New York City, he to the New York City Ballet and she to the American Ballet Theatre as a teacher and ballet master under the direction of Mikhail Baryshnikov, an old friend of hers from Russia.

"He was a huge inspiration to everyone," she says of Baryshnikov, "and had a fantastic sense of humor." She also worked with Rudolf Nureyev, whom she describes as having "enormous charisma, enormous warmth. I've been very enriched by having worked with both of them."

Evreinoff says that the value she learned from working with those world famous talents is one that she now holds as a professional standard and one she also sees in Andersen: "You cannot settle for second best. If you don't have a vision of what you want to achieve, you cannot progress. You have to know what the ultimate ideal is and demand the best."

"Ib is very demanding, especially on himself," says Evreinoff, which accounts for the quality of Ballet Arizona's performances and the fact that she's seen "the company grow over the years. They're better dancers now," she explains. "Better trained. They're well fed; they get better dance food."

According to Evreinoff, who is also teaching the morning dance class at Ballet Arizona's studio while she is in town, it is good training and practicing together that give dancers the recipe for bringing their own passion out on stage. She emphasizes the need to strive for excellence, and then go even further. "All theater is the art of illusion," Evreinoff says. "The dancer is a magician, creating an illusion in time and space, reaching out beyond the space of the orchestra pit, beyond the movement."

Beyond that, what more can be said, except that the proof is in the pudding. And the table will be lavishly set-to music. Evreinoff loves the Glauzanov score for "Raymonda."

"The music is wonderful," she says. "Real music." The ballet she describes as "simple, but with a real elegance-with almost a perfume about it."

But you'll have to smell and taste these delights for yourself as the distinctly different concoctions that make up the dance menu for "Raymonda and Other Works," two original commissioned dances and a classic served as the three courses of Andersen's balletic feast.
Bon appétit!

Performances are March 24 and 25 at 8 p.m. and March 25 and 26 at 2 p.m. at the Orpheum Theatre, 203 W. Adams, Phoenix. Tickets range from $10 to $102. Children 12 and under are half price, with exclusions in some seating sections. Senior, student, military, teacher and group discounts are available. Tickets are available through the Ballet Arizona box office, 3645 E. Indian School Rd, Phoenix (602) 381 1096, www.balletaz.org, or any Ticketmaster outlet (480) 784 4444, www.ticketmaster.com.

Special pre performance chats with Ib Andersen and guests of the ballet will take place 45 minutes before the performances. A free sneak peak studio rehearsal is open to the public on March 11, 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., at Ballet Arizona's studio, 3645 E. Indian School Rd, Phoenix.