The Bermuda Ballet Association.

*** The oldest of Canada's ballet companies, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, which was established in 1939, has enjoyed international success with its repertoire grounded in the classics and supplemented by the works of leading modern choreographers.

Now, thanks to the Bermuda Ballet Association, we have been given the opportunity to see for ourselves this outstanding company that has certainly earned its reputation, with a group of superbly trained dancers who bring a fine sense of theatre to everything they perform.

The first programme had a little of everything, underlining the fact that today's `establishment' companies have to cater to both traditional and modern tastes if they are to survive.

George Balanchine, so innovative for so long, has become a classic himself, and Allegro Brillante, one of his signature works, provides a pleasant and appropriate curtain raiser to the now diversified world of dance.

Created in 1956 for two principals and four couples, the plotless ballet is set to the 3rd Piano Concerto of Tchaikovsky and is vintage Balanchine in that the movement and pattern formations echo the ebb and flow of the music, epitomising the neo-classicism that is so indelibly associated with Balanchine. Principal dancer Laura Graham, who led the festivities, has a formidable technique that brought a sparkling fluidity to this popular work.

The notion that ballet has come a long way since its classic days was brought home with the delightfully bizarre pas de deux, La Princess et Le Soldat, set to a French narration, in which the said princess delivers, at one climactic point, a hefty blow to her partner's stomach. This was just one of the unexpected revelations in Mark Godden's witty piece, its acrobatic contortions brilliantly danced by Suzanne Rubio and Gino Di Marco. Jiri Kylian has been acclaimed as one of the world's leading choreographers and his ballet, Stoolgame, first staged by the Nederlands Dance Theatre, confirms his preeminence. Now the Royal Winnipeg Ballet have taken this powerful work to its heart and, with an electrifying performance, present a devastating statement on society's rejection of the outsider.

Dancing at first in silence, punctuated by the brutish yet rhythmic banging of the stools used in a sinister game of musical chairs, the work progresses to a disturbing electronic score by Arne Nordheim.

Set for seven dancers, superbly led by Amy Brogan, Shawn Hounsell and Gino Di Marco, this dramatic work is sure to become one of the pillars of the Company's already strong repertoire.

Then there was Jiri Kylian in gentler mood, with his pas de deux, Nuages, in which the dreamy, impressionistic music of Debussy was reflected by the meltingly lyrical performance of Caroline Gruber and Michael Hodges.

Brian Macdonald, perhaps Canada's best known choreographer, provided a marvellous finale to the evening with his parody on classical ballet, Pas D'Action.

With a tongue-in-cheek plot that pokes fun at an era when narrative ballets were little more than an excuse for dance extravaganzas, the syrupy music of Von Suppe set the style and mood for this piece that drew delighted laughter from the audience.

Laura Graham was the alluring ballerina assoluta who led her four cavaliers in a merry, if competitive dance as they resorted to all the tricks of the balletic trade -- with pas de deux, pas de trois and pas de quatres that sizzled with tortuously held arabesques, flailing entrechats, grands jetes and whip-lashing fouettes.

If the parody was perhaps a little over the top, lacking, for instance, the far more subtle touches of bitchy ballerinas immortalised in Tudor's Gala Performance, it was great fun and, once again, was danced with dazzling assurance by this fine Canadian company.

Tonight is your last chance to catch them, when they will be presenting a different programme that includes one of ballet's best loved works, the Pas de Six from Napoli.

PATRICIA CALNAN THE ROYAL WINNIPEG BALLET -- A scene from Napoli, one of the ballets that will be performed in tonight's final programme at City Hall.