The weather may have been manic on the Toronto streets (temperatures ranging from minus 16 to plus 14) but last week there was a vernal feeling in the handsome Four Seasons Centre (spacious, with blond wood and expanses of glass), which is the performing home for the National Ballet of Canada. The reason? Three new ballets by three Canadian choreographers, with the bonus of two new scores. As programming, this is audacious. As a venture, it shows faith in audience loyalty. As artistic policy, it is brave, and it brings nothing but laurels for Karen Kain, the company's former ballerina and now artistic director.

Whatever the merits in the choreography, it was a splendid enterprise: such rare adventurousness is the only way to ensure a future for a national company. The national element seems to me of first importance in an age when repertories are cloned and when the need for a troupe to preserve its own identity is often outweighed by the box-office allure of ballets people have heard of. Thus today's déjà vu programming; and thus my interest in an event that broke every now-sacred rule of predictable audience satisfaction.