October 11, 2002

A Romanov Veneer at the Kirov

By LYNN GARAFOLA

Time traveling in dance is different from time traveling in the other arts, where the object is fixed (as in painting or poetry) or scripted (as in opera or drama). Dance vanishes in the act of performance, and because memory alone brings it back, change takes place more readily than in other arts. But change, while inevitable, is not always value-free. A case in point is the recent spate of "old-new" works by Russia's Kirov Ballet, as it repackages itself for the post-Soviet, global