Sustained and well-deserved applause greeted Ballet Ireland's Extravaganza 2000 in the National Concert Hall on Saturday.
This young company has consistently improved over the last three years and we can be proud it is representing Ireland for a month in the UK. It is outrageous that underfunding now threatens its future.
In Shinobu Sagakuchi, the company has a principal dancer of immense talent and charm. Her Aurora was splendid technically, despite the unusually slow tempo of Tchaikovsky's music for the Rose Adagio from The Sleeping Beauty, making the balances harder to sustain.
She also had all the youthful radiance of a teenager excited by her first ball, and her Dying Swan touched the heart despite inadequate lighting - which marred several other ballets - hiding her facial expressions.
Ray Barra's Pas de Huit Minus One, set to Strauss, made an upbeat opening, while Rene de la Rose's Adagio in Colour avoided the funereal atmosphere often pervading settings of this Albinoni score.
The two remaining Tchaikovsky extracts - Mirlitons from Act 2 of Nutcracker and Neapolitan Dance from Act 3 of Swan Lake - were both attractively performed, the rest of the programme consisting of choreography by artistic director Gunther Falusy.
Of these my favourite was the Bejart-influenced The Cage, set to Bruckner, and previously performed, as was the final light-hearted Offenbach piece La Belle Epoque.
Sympho for Fun (Rossini) had unattractive costumes, Kuss (Schubert) was an Isadora Duncan-style piece while Grieg's Morning was an agreeable two-hander but all, like the whole programme, were well-danced by the 12-strong company.
This programme will be repeated today (Monday 1st) at 3.15 p.m. before touring to An Grianan, Letterkenny (3rd), Friar's Gate, Kilmallock (4th and 5th), Arts Centre, Mullingar (6th), BT Studios, Waterfront, Belfast (7th), St Michael's Theatre, New Ross (9th), and Riverside Theatre, Coleraine (11th).