THE BELL CURVE:An eye on the Big Dance, ballet

I was probably the only guy on our block who left the Oregon-Winthrop March Madness game in the second half and missed USC-Texas altogether to go to the ballet last Sunday afternoon. Since I was hoping USC would lose and they won big, that was no great sacrifice, which I didn’t have to tell you. But the point is, I saw as much athleticism — maybe more — at the Orange County Performing Arts Center than I would have seen on a basketball court. And the ballerinas could give points to the cheerleaders and still turn more male heads.

I got hooked on ballet when the editors at the National Observer thought it might be a good feature angle to send a writer with a ballet IQ about the same level as Mother Teresa’s grasp of football’s Statue of Liberty play to do a piece on the then-reining royalty of ballet, Rudolph Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn. My wife, who had been trying to interest me in ballet for years, took me to a performance of “Swan Lake” as a kind of warm-up, and I liked it. I didn’t understand what was taking place, but I felt a stirring in my soul that surprised me. So I was primed for Nureyev and Fonteyn.

The deal was that I could hang out for a day and watch them rehearse. Just me, an empty studio and a handful of professionals about their work. I went home exhilarated, saw them perform a few days later and was allowed to write a kind-of counterpoint to the esoteric prose that accompanies most ballet reviews. And so 30 years ago, I was hooked for life, an admission for which I will probably be pilloried at my next poker night.

I’ve been impressed by the number and quality of the ballet companies being brought to our performing arts center. I go as often as I can afford it, but for some reason, I have taken far too many years to discover the rush tickets that allow poverty-stricken wretches like me to stand in line an hour before curtain time of a performance that hasn’t been sold out and buy the empty seats at a considerable bargain. I say this at the risk of making it tougher for me by alerting people to this device. And, also, possibly at the expense of diverting customers away from baseball, which would be both unlikely and un-American.

So with a companion who had once been a ballet dancer, I got in line last Friday, waited a half an hour, got tickets in the eighth row to “Anna Karenina” and was blown away by the Eifman Ballet of St. Petersburg in Russia. So blown away that we did the same thing on Sunday for “The Sea Gull” — and missed those basketball games. Despite the absence of a live orchestra, I have never been moved by any art form as I was by these two performances. Maybe that was because of where I happened to be emotionally when I sat down in the theater. Or maybe because they were that good. Or maybe both.

Before I saw the Eifman programs, I was restless with avant-garde work, much preferring the undemanding comfort and grace of more conventional choreography. I didn’t have to work at that. Just settle back and drink it in.

But the Eifmans carried all this to a new level. Every element blended. Superb lighting and special effects. Creative commingling of various Tchaikovsky bits and pieces. Exciting choreography. And off-the-scale performances across the board.

I knew nothing about the technical virtuosity of the work. I knew only that it sent me out with a sense of grace even greater than a catch halfway up an outfield wall or a slam-dunk on a single leap from the foul circle.

The standing ovations after both performances told me that the old — and mostly accurate — image of Orange County as a cultural desert, populated by political primitives, has been displaced, at least far enough to provide enthusiastic audiences for artists like the Eifman dancers. So did listening to the talk up and down the waiting line where I heard a lot of accents that I took to be Russian and a lot of excitement at being able to afford this day.

Three thoughts occurred to me while I waited.

First, the aforementioned gratitude at our fine venues and the aggressive leadership that has attracted such a succession of world-class ballet companies to perform in them.

Second, the hope that, whenever possible, we wait for the varsity cast — especially in musicals — when their Broadway runs end rather than book in national companies with, far too often, weak replacements. Traveling ballet companies only send the varsity. We’re a top-of-the-line option and not the sticks any more.

And finally and most important, puzzlement that we don’t have a resident ballet company bearing our name.

At least twice that I know about, a Los Angeles ballet company has been formed, threshed about for a couple of years, and then disappeared. Our experience with ballet at the Orange County Performing Arts Center proves that there is a robust and enthusiastic base for ballet here, and we shouldn’t be daunted by the failures in Los Angeles.

So why not an Orange County ballet company with a flag planted firmly in that soil?

Meanwhile, I’ll be back in March Madness this weekend, with no cultural conflict to confuse the issues. And waiting enthusiastically for the arrival of the American Ballet Theatre in July — right after Major League Baseball’s annual All-Star game for us cross-cultural types.