What a more appropriate horror monster to have been embraced by high art than the often romanticized count from Translyvania? Ever since Bela Legosi first donned the cape, Dracula has become a kind of Don Juan of the undead, a bloodsucking Casanova.

Not quite what author Bram Stoker originally intended--his count was a plague spreader and a quasi-racist warning to distrust the charms of non-western Europeans--but nonetheless, this sexually-charged version of Dracula is the one that our culture has come to embrace.

One of the most intriguing forms Dracula has taken in high art these days has been in ballet. An art form commonly viewed as "the fairy's football," ballet has been able to attract many outside ballet's fan base by giving a spotlight to this most famous of horror characters. Balletscompanies from Houston, Texas to London, England have been quick to reap the rewards. Even our own Virginia Ballet Theatre has been enchanted by Dracula's lure. An original production featuring the music of local composers Michael Kaiser and Dr. Donald Liebell and the choreography of the VBT's director Frank Bove, it has quickly come to be a staple for the decades-old dance troupe.

"The best compliments I hear tend to be the kind that go, I'm not a ballet fan, but I really liked this," says Bove, who has played the role of Dracula for the previous two years. "For ballet to survive today, it must be willing to branch out and do things that will be accepted by modern audiences. The first year it took literally every ounce of blood from us to pull Dracula off, but I think it was worth it. You can't get away with just putting on the umpteenth production of The Nutcracker. You can't go off and do weird stuff all the time either. Ballet has distanced itself from the public and this needs to change if ballet is to live on into the next century."

It was from rather humble beginnings that the VBT came to sink its fangs into Dracula. Bove, Kaiser and Liebell were sitting around the tube watching a pro football game when Kaiser first posed the idea of composing something for the ballet. Ideas bounced about between the three for weeks until Dracula was finally decided upon, a choice that wasn't Bove's first.

"I admit, I have never been a big fan of Dracula, but the story had such potential in it so far as becoming a spectacular ballet," says Bove. "Much of the emotional context within the various versions of Stoker's novel have all been expressed in more physical ways than vocal. And the story itself plays out like the finest of tragedies--as in the finale, when Dracula asks the woman he loves, Mina, to take his life rather than live cursed another day. In the end, I couldn't say no to doing it."

And so it's been hard for the critics to say no to it either. Area critics like the Virginian Pilot's Sue Van Hecke have long been singing accolades over this ballet. Praising everything from the Philip Glass-like score to the intense physicality of the actors on stage, it seems even the cynics have succumbed to the lure of this vampire.

In its third year, Bove has stepped down as the count and let noted dancer Duncan Cooper take his place. In turn, however, Bove has taken steps to broaden exposure for Dracula in an ambitious campaign to reach those disinclined toward the ballet. For example, as part of this campaign, he brought the VBT to co-sponsor, of all things, a blood drive earlier this month. Indeed, Bove and the Virginia Ballet Theatre have sunk their teeth into Dracula full bare.

"This ballet has really grown far beyond my wildest expectations," says Bove. "Though we've had great success with such things as Appalachian Spring and Firebird, Dracula holds a special place for us. And as long as that is true we will be doing everything in our power to see Dracula gets as high a profile as possible. After all, there's still plenty of people out there who think ballet is just prancing about in tutus. And I think they'll definitely change their tune (when they) get a load of what we have in store for them."