By Steve Simmons and Winston Chua                                            (Maxine Picard/Photography)

It was a midsummer night celebration of ballet.

The American Ballet Theatre concluded its 30th Los Angeles season last Monday night with a special performance at the San Marino home of hosts Avery and Andy Barth in front of an audience of supporters from the West Side and East Side of town.

“Tonight is a chance to introduce ballet to more of our friends, and encourage American Ballet Theatre to come and visit,” said Andy Barth, who has been on the ABT board of trustees for nine years. His mother studied ballet and his sister was a dancer with ABT.

“An Evening in San Marino—Stars Under the Stars” was a chance for supporters to gather, hear of the company's accomplishments and plans, and get one last chance to see the beauty of classical dance.

“We’re grateful for the Barths’ generosity and the chance to thank our L.A. supporters,” said ABT Executive Director Rachel Moore. “We’re building friends and a base here.”

The week-long string of performances of Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty that made up the troupe’s L.A. season, were popular because of their accessibility, Moore said. “Children loved it."

Before the program, on an intimate stage on his tennis court, Barth termed the event a celebration of the grace and athleticism of ballet. “Dancers are really athletes applying their abilities to a graceful art.”

He also announced a new choreography project, with new works by four of the company’s dancers to be performed in New York City on Oct. 12. “If you’re in town; you shouldn’t miss it.”

His announcement of the ABT’s five-year partnership with the Brooklyn Academy of Music to hopefully bring an ABT Nutcracker to L.A. drew an enthusiastic audience response.

The formal program, before the approximately 200 guests, featured excerpted performances from some of the company’s “greatest hits” of recent seasons.

Described by Kevin McKenzie, ABT artistic director as a “program of classic emotions for a mid-summer night” the presentation was bookended by highlights of Sleeping Beauty, and included Neopolitan from Swan Lake, the Thais Pas de Deux and of course, The Dream Pas de Deux from A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Mendelssohn’s famous music.

A highlight of the program was the Manon Pas de Deux, from last season’s well-received production of Lady Of The Camellias, to music by Chopin.

“We’ve had a really good season in New York and here in L.A.” said McKenzie, “there were people who told us this would not be a good ticket-buying season. But we’ve fared through both artistically and financially; and we met our goals.”

McKenzie is particularly pleased that “by never dropping our standards,” the company has become known as a “quality brand” with an ever-expanding repertoire.

“And with friends like the Barths, we’re finding more and more friends in Los Angeles,” McKenzie said.

Next season, the ABT will return with The Bright Stream, choreographed by artist-in-residence Alexei Ratmansky to music by Dimitri Shostakovich.

ABT is also home to “the best dancers in the world.” McKenzie adds, “For example, for us it’s important to have David Hallberg, not the next David Hallberg; and you see that throughout the company. We use examples without imitating them.”

Honorary chair of the event Nigel Lythgoe loved the company’s “sumptuous” Sleeping Beauty.

He is so enamored of ballet that he hosted two ABT dancers on his show So You Think You Can Dance, on last Thursday’s broadcast. He serves as the competition show’s executive producer and lead judge.

He met ballerina Yuriko Kajiya in Bermuda, was asked to lend his name to last Monday’s event and featured Kajiya and Jared Matthews in an edited down version of the Don Quixote Pas de Deux, which they did more fully at the Barths.

His next goal is to establish a National Dance Day.

He’s enlisted the help of Washington, D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton to “bring all people into the world of dance and make dance a way of life.”

For ths inaugural event, on July 31, “we’re taking over the Music Center,” Lythgoe said; and events are set for San Francisco, Atlanta and Chicago.

Actress Eva La Rue, CSI Miami, one of the evening’s co-chairs, also shares the ballet passion.

Early in her career she took dance classes at Stanley Holden’s West Los Angeles Dance Center. ABT dancers, with Mikhail Baryshnikov as artistic director, also studied at the studio.

“We saw the monsters of ballet,” La Rue says. “It took my breath away.

“I was following every little girl’s dream to be a ballerina,” La Rue says. “When that didn’t work out I became an actress.”

In her remarks, Moore pointed out that in 2006 the ABT was named America’s National Ballet Company, charged with bringing “the best of classic dance to all of America.”

ABT educational programs serve more than 20,00 children across the country, including L.A. County; children who otherwise might never see ballet.

“We couldn’t do it without your support,” she told the crowd.