You know that times are tough when our prima ballerinas are forced to dance to pre-taped music instead of being accompanied by a live orchestra. For the second half of its 2008-09 season the company will drop live music due to declining donations and ticket sales. It costs nearly half a million dollars to have music for a full season, and they've only raised about two fifths of that. So instead, from February until April dancers will be demi-pointing to canned tunes. There will also be no live music for their Holiday performances of the nut cracker.
--Kyle Munzenrieder