BALLET IN TOWN: MIAMI CITY PERFORMS TONIGHT AT ACADEMIC

If Hollywood ever makes a movie about the life of Edward Villella, the Queens boxer and baseball player who became the pre-eminent American male ballet dancer of the 20th century, put Al Pacino in ballet slippers.

The energetic Villella, the only American dancer ever asked to dance an encore at Moscow's Bolshoi Ballet, prowled the Parker Dance Studio floor Wednesday night prodding students to perform traditional ballet movements to the rhythm of "a funky waltz."

"It's better than 1-2-3-4. You go crazy with 1-2-3-4," he said.

Indeed, Villella's master class for 40 students was very much unlike stereotypical ballet instruction. While the dancers stood at the barre, he walked among them clapping, counting and stamping his feet like a shaman summoning the spirit of George Balanchine.

Often he danced himself as an almost reverential silence attended every word he uttered.

Villella will deliver a free lecture at 9:30 this morning at Kent Library's Little Theatre. He will narrate at 5:30 tonight when members of his Miami City Ballet perform works by Balanchine, Paul Taylor and Miami City Ballet choreographer Jimmy Gamonet de Los Heros in Academic Auditorium.

Their appearance here is sponsored by Southeast Missouri State University in cooperation with Dance St. Louis.

During the warmup period, the Parker studio looked like Degas fantasy filled with mostly lithe girls and young women pointing their toes and tilting their heads. Villella urged them to create dimension in their movements by turning their shoulders. At one point he compared dance steps to musical notes.

Another time he presented the dancers with a paradox.

"You have to learn how to land before you jump," he said. "But how do you learn to land unless you jump?"

The answer, they quickly discovered, is to "jump down," a technique that created softer landings.

The dancers got into the master class by permission only. Among the students were Southeast's gymnastics team, led by Coach Kris Buchheister. Buchheister gave her team the day off so they could take this "once in a lifetime" opportunity to learn from a master.

"I wish I had had this style of ballet instruction as a kid growing up," she said.

She expects Villella's artistry and his landing techniques will improve her team's performances.

Amanda Sharp, a Notre Dame High School junior and student at the Academy of DanceArts, said Villella's instruction was much more musical than she was used to. "It's something I'll always keep with me," she said of the class.

Dr. Marc Strauss, head of the dance program at Southeast, took a class Villella taught 18 years ago at the University of New Hampshire. Strauss, who participated in Wednesday's class, said it was as if no time had passed.

Villella's instruction furthers the tradition of syncopated movements Balanchine, his mentor, brought to the U.S. 60 years ago.

"It's energized, sleek and powerful."

If the class was an indication, tonight's audience can expect a performance along those lines.