ust when I thought I couldn't handle another year of that cutesy-poo keyhole-peeping scene at the beginning of Boston Ballet's ''The Nutcracker,'' along comes Daniel Pelzig to eliminate it. In his remake of the ballet's first act, Pelzig has swept away the shtick and made ''The Nutcracker'' make sense. Bravo.
On other fronts, New England's largest dance troupe had a mixed year. A revival of Lila York's ''Celts'' - the thinking person's alternative to ''Riverdance'' - was among Boston Ballet's hits; Pelzig's ''An American in Paris'' didn't, alas, live up to expectations. This was the first full year at the helm for Ballet artistic director Anna-Marie Holmes, whose main claim to fame heretofore was that she was the first American to dance with Russia's Maryinsky Ballet. Holmes has brought to Boston Russian coaches, teachers, and dancers - all glad to get out of a country whose economic woes have left arts institutions in disarray. What effect the Russian presence will have on Boston remains to be seen. The pedigree is excellent, but many balletomanes feel that in the post-Balanchine era, the Maryinsky style, even in its updated incarnation, is old hat.
This year the Ballet also signed on Jeffrey N. Babcock as general director and chief executive officer: He's the guy who is supposed to find the money, in other words. In several performances the Ballet offered glimpses of what all the fund-raising and audience-building are for - dancing on the level of the triumphant ''Swan Lake'' performed by 20-year-old April Ball and her brother Simon, 22, or April Ball's majestic Myrtha, Queen of the Wilis in ''Giselle.''
BankBoston Celebrity Series continued to be Boston's major presenter of major attractions, with this year's roster including American Ballet Theatre, the White Oak Dance Project, and ''Tharp!'' Twyla Tharp's new company of 13 technically dazzling dancers triumphed in an idiosyncratic style that, notwithstanding the hip waggles and shoulder shrugs, is classical - concerned with truth, beauty, and proportion. There's always a question about whether a company can outlive its founder. Paul Taylor still creates works for his own ensemble, but there was good news for posterity in the pristine reading Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Project gave Taylor's 1979 ''Profiles,'' with Ruthlyn Salomons flying to Hernando Cortez's shoulder without warm-up or warning. And in works ranging from 19th-century excerpts to the syncopated Americana of Jerome Robbins's ''Fancy Free,'' the dancers of ABT spanned the range of classicism with technical acumen and stylistic largesse.
Time was when the Celebrity Series and Dance Umbrella had completely different profiles, the former presenting established touring companies, the latter offering smaller and odder troupes. The distinction has blurred. This year, for instance, Dance Umbrella presented Trisha Brown, who has been a force in the field for more than 30 years. When Brown's pal Robert Rauschenberg suggested that she dance with her back to the audience, her first reaction was to resist. After all, she had spent years developing a front-facing ''communicative apparatus.'' ''If You Couldn't See Me'' was her triumphant response to Rauschenberg's challenge, a dance where a shoulder blade could be every bit as expressive as a face.
Other outstanding Umbrella offerings this year included Bill T. Jones's new 70-minute epic, ''We Set Out Early ... Visibility Was Poor''; Michael Moschen's juggling show, bravura in both technique and spirit; and Mark Morris's ''Medium,'' an ethereal, melancholy meditation on death, danced to John Harbison's ''November 19, 1828'' (the date of Schubert's death).
The Celebrity Series, meanwhile, presented two small but high-quality Boston-based modern troupes - the Marcus Schulkind Dance Company and Dance Collective. Schulkind's program included his biblical ''Triptych,'' with Dianna Daly Blackman giving a powerful reading of his ''Job.'' Dance Collective's performance marked the company's 25th anniversary. Surviving - flourishing, even - for a quarter-century is quite an achievement given the rate at which other Boston-based modern dance ensembles have folded or faded from the scene. Rather than offer a retrospective, the Collective took the opportunity to forge ahead with mostly new works, including Dawn Kramer's heartbreaking ''The Body Hesitates.'' A tribute to Carlo Rizzo, who was a mainstay of the Collective for over a decade and now suffers from severe arthritis, ''The Body Hesitates'' showed Rizzo moving slowly, even spasmodically - but with the same regal dignity he's always had.
Few touring ballet troupes showed up in Boston this year; ABT's brief visit was the major exception. A Monaco-based company called Les Ballets de Monte Carlo paid an equally brief but less impressive call, offering generic Euro choreography plus a lone Lucinda Childs piece with her characteristic choreographic rigor. Notable among the self-produced local concerts was ''Wear More Red,'' dances by Brian Crabtree and Marjorie Morgan - his cool, hers robust - performed at Green Street Studios in Cambridge, an endearingly informal performing space and one of the few available to low-budget local companies.
A fine home-grown classical company, Ballet Theatre of Boston, tried to turn adversity to advantage this year, canceling its spring season to regroup financially. Artist/filmmaker Jocelyn Ajami premiered an excellent documentary, ''Gypsy Heart,'' about the career of Omayra Amaya, a great flamenco dancer who was Boston-based until the city's lack of support forced her to move to New Mexico. Both Ballet Theatre's cancellation and Amaya's move are chilling reminders that of all the arts, dance has had the most tenuous existence in Boston.
Globe correspondents Thea Singer and Debra Cash contributed to this report.
