It takes two to tango and two for a pas de deux, but Aspen Santa Fe Ballet's local summer season is more a case of three plus two plus one. The company has slated three programs over the next two months, all in one venue: the Lensic Performing Arts Center. The first program is A Gala Evening of Stars on Sunday, July 12, which offers guest artists and ASFB dancers in famous pas de deux, plus a solo from a dancer with The Parsons Dance Company. The second program presents Parsons Dance on July 28. The final program is the ASFB company in mixed repertory on Aug. 7 and 8; the program includes the local premiere of Ji?rí Kylián's Sechs Tänze.

In French, pas de deux means literally "step for two." That's what it is, too: a duet for a pair of dancers. Most often a pas de deux is danced by a woman and a man, though many contemporary choreographers have created famous duets for two women or two men. But in any mix it takes two bodies, four arms, and four legs, moving alternately together and separately, to perform and put across a pas de deux.

In its most formal sense — the "grand pas de deux" — it is a multimovement extravaganza in five parts. These pas de deux, such as that found in Don Quixote, consist of a formal entrée, a slow and graceful adagio, a brilliant and tricky variation for each dancer, and finally a smashing coda to finish things up with fireworks. Many of the greatest pas de deux are set to tuneful, pretty, danceable music, but it is often music without much deep creative content; Tchaikovsky's scores for The Nutcracker and Swan Lake are perfect ballet music but not on the philosophical level of his symphonies.

On Sunday, ASFB presents Paloma Herrera and Gennadi Saveliev of American Ballet Theatre in the pas de deux from Le Corsaire and Don Quixote, both choreographed by Marius Petipa, and Lorena Feijoo and Vitor Luiz of San Francisco Ballet in the "Black Swan" pas de deux from Swan Lake and the pas de deux from Carmen, created respectively by Petipa and Alberto Alonso. Company dancers Katie Dehler and Seth DelGrasso perform Twyla Tharp's Sinatra Suite, and Katherine Eberle and Nolan DeMarco McGahan dance the duet from Gerald Arpino's Light Rain. Julie Blume of Parsons Dance performs Parsons' iconic work Caught.

Dancing a pas de deux, whether in a full ballet or on a concert, goes way beyond technical considerations, Herrera said in a phone interview from New York. It's like any other art form, she stressed. When you have the technique down, you spend your time and energy working to tell the story in the most artistically coherent way possible, not consciously thinking about how high you have to leap.

"Take our season at the Met [Metropolitan Opera] next week," she said. "We're rehearsing Romeo and Juliet right now. I've done the ballet many times. It's not about the lift, or the turn. It's about the balcony scene or the tomb scene. By now, the technique is completely past us. We have done it many, many times; it's more than just doing steps."

Not that mastery of steps isn't important. "If we're doing Sylvia," Herrera said, "it's much more classical than some that are more modern, and they're very different. Modern ballets can be more complicated in lifting, others are more simple. It has a lot to do with the choreographer!"

There's also the issue of pacing — physical, mental, and emotional. Herrera explained that she has done many dramatic ballets in several acts, but also many Balanchine programs in one act, or just one long dance. But no matter how the work is presented, "You put 100 percent up there. It doesn't matter if it is a full-length ballet or just the pas de deux; you give 100 percent. I'm going to do the pas from Don Quixote and Le Corsaire, and it's the same as the full-length ballet: the essence, the style. What you're trying to give is the exact same you would give a full-length performance."

Asking any performer for a list of their favorite pieces or works is generally futile. A committed artist may really enjoy doing certain works, but she will always have enough energy to put toward a current focus. So it is with Herrera.

"I can't say I have one favorite ballet," she said cautiously. "I could not choose one ballet over the other. One of the first roles I did as a principal [with ABT] was Don Quixote, and a lot of people put me in their minds with that role. I was only 19, and I thought, it's not going to be my whole career. I had the opportunity to do it over and over, but then I had the opportunity to do Swan Lake and Giselle, and I love them all.

"When you're trying to be the character, you can think of somebody completely different than yourself, or you can try to find a way to bring it closer to your personality. Both ways are really good ways of expressing yourself. There's no way you can be a swan, no way you can be a specter, floating in the second act of Giselle. You have to find a graceful way of feeling."

ASFB directors Jean-Philippe Malaty and Tom Mossbrucker had seen Herrera's work often, and she recently saw ASFB when the group performed in New York. "I thought the company looked beautiful, and I went to talking to J.P., and he said, 'I'd love to have you dance with the company.' I said, 'Anytime.'

"For me to be a guest, it's always a pleasure. I love ABT, I've been in the company so many years. [Artistic director] Kevin McKenzie is always nice about letting me guest with other companies — I just did La Scala in Milan, a new Coppelia. We represent ABT everywhere that way, and it's an experience to dance with other companies."

details
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet summer season:
8 p.m. Sunday, July 12: A Gala Evening of Stars
8 p.m. Tuesday, July 28: The Parsons Dance Company
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Aug. 7 and 8: ASFB in mixed repertoire
Lensic Performing Arts Center, 211 W. San Francisco St.
$20-$82 (varies by program); 988-1234