VAIL - It's a new day at the Vail International Dance Festival, now that Damian Woetzel is running the show. New dancers, new dances, new energy.

Well, not everything has changed - thank goodness. The mostly couples International Evenings extravaganzas remain. And Friday, the first of two weekend programs once again offered superb performances from dancers visiting from around the world.

As usual, a full house in the Ford Amphitheatre went nuts as each eye-popping solo, duet or ensemble piece concluded. If these shows had begun to look a bit tired in recent years, Woetzel, the festival's new artistic director, would have none of it.

Heck, the guy even put on some tights and went out there and joined the show.

Highlights were numerous, most of them coming courtesy of dancers from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (making their long-overdue Vail debut).

There was the Sinner Man trio from Ailey's masterful Revelations and his glorious solo, Cry, created for the equally glorious Judith Jamison and here danced with nearly as much passion and abandon by Dwana Adiaha Smallwood. The three men also performed a cheeky piece by Hans van Manen, Solo, that consisted, naturally, of solos danced to violin music of Bach - played brilliantly by Jennifer Koh.

Earlier, Alicia J. Graf and Clifton Brown impressed in Ailey's Pas de Duke. All in all, a delicious sampling of the Ailey company's continuing greatness.

Christopher Wheeldon, whose new company debuts here next week, wowed the crowd with a magical pas de deux, Liturgy, set to Paert's Fratres. New York City Ballet dancers Wendy Whelan and Albert Evans were brilliant in this muscular, intimate piece.

Equally exciting in a different way was the evocative Nacho Duato duet, Rassemblement, performed beautifully by Pacific Northwest principals Carla Korbes and Bakhturel Bold.

These new pieces by today's hot dancemakers hardly overshadowed the standard rep, all given loving treatment by the dancers. There was the inescapable Don Q pas de deux by the Royal Ballet's Roberta Marquez and Johan Kobborg, who also danced the familiar Flower Festival at Genzano, and, in the only nod to classic "white ballets," the pas de deux from The Nutcracker, performed joyfully by Woetzel and Whelan, his City Ballet partner.

Two stand-outs by John Neumeier (a scene from Romeo and Juliet and Spring and Fall) were danced brilliantly by Helene Bouchet and Thiago Bordin.

Vail International Dance Festival

• Grade: A-

• When and where: Performed again at 7:30 p.m. today in the Ford Amphitheatre.

• Information: 1-970-845-8497