Of Satin Toes and Celluloid

All right, so your childhood tutu visions faded out after eight awkward ballet lessons. Even so, you probably remember falling in thrall to one of two movies: The Red Shoes or The Turning Point. Summerfest/dance 2000 is banking that you do, anyway, with its first ever Dance Film Series, programmed to lure dance lovers over to the Cowell Theater in hopes that they'll stick around for some of Summerfest's live dancing, too. Riding a remarkable surge of interest in dance on film and curated by FOOTAGE Dance Film Festival producer Cynthia Pepper, the series mixes the fodder of every young girl's pointe shoe fantasies with informative dance history documentaries and cutting-edge dance films by contemporary choreographers.

Kia Simon's In Public Space, featuring local companies POTRZEBIE and Flyaway Productions, shares a bill July 30 with Encore for Ruby, about early San Francisco Ballet dancer Ruby Christiensen (of the famous Christiensen ballet family), and Speaking on Dance, a portrait of city dance legend Lucas Hoving. Those who follow the precocious choreographic career of current San Francisco Ballet principal Julia Adam will want to catch The Medium; it screens July 16 with a documentary on modern dancer Erick Hawkins, and The Red Shoes, starring the iconic Moira Shearer and a young Royal (then Sadler's-Wells) Ballet. San Francisco choreographer Rebecca Salzer's Office Furniture accompanies filmed reconstructions of Isadora Duncan's pioneering dances July 23, and Mikhail Baryshnikov's melodramatic celebrity vehicle, The Turning Point.

Summerfest/dance 2000's Dance Film Series screens Sundays at 1 p.m. through July 30 at Fort Mason Center's Cowell Theater, Marina & Buchanan, S.F. Tickets, at the door only, are $5 per day -- $1 with student ID, a policy Summerfest's organizers hope you'll make liberal use of: Even a dance class card will get you in for a buck. Call 441-3687 for a complete schedule.