“Pointe,Click & Bid”: American Ballet Theatre auctions ballet “experiences” for the holidays

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Ordinarily, dinner with a ballet dancer is nothing to get too excited about: ‘Care to share my carrot stick? You can have the big half ...’

But check out the dinner-and-dancer possibilities on American Ballet Theatre’s new holiday auction site: Starting bid is $5,000 for the chance to nosh with ABT hottie Roberto Bolle (that’s him above), 33, in New York City, place and time to be arranged. ‘He’s gorgeous,’ a company insider says, rather breathlessly, of the Italian star.

You can’t start bidding until Monday, but you can already visit the site to see the Bolle offer as well as a number of other attractive gift options, most in NYC but a few in Washington and Los Angeles; one L.A. offering is dinner with Brazilian principal dancer Marcelo Gomes, with whom Culture Monster would definitely not mind splitting a carrot stick. In New York, it’s possible to have a meal with famed Russian ballerina Nina Ananiashvili during her farewell season with the company.

Other gifts, with starting bids ranging from $100 to $5,000, include weekend packages with ballet tickets, signed pointe shoes and photographs, and such experiential options as the chance to play stage manager during an ABT performance and to ride the pirate ship onstage during productions of ‘Le Corsaire’ in New York or London.

The auction closes Dec. 15.

-- Diane Haithman