Tonight is a big one at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. German choreographer Pina Bausch – famous for her creation of dance theater that’s neo and Euro in every way imaginable – presents the exclusive U.S. engagement of her work “Fur die Kinder von Gestern, Heute und Morgen” (“For the Children of Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow”). The performance marks the 20th anniversary of Ms. Bausch’s relationship with the edge-pushing programming of BAM.

So what can the audience expect of the work tonight? Well, a giant sandcastle will be created on stage. (Her works often incorporate some sort of material, be it water, sand, or dirt.) And there will be movement and gestures intended to examine humanity, the meaning of life, happiness, and such lofty things.

Ms. Bausch made herself available to journalists at a press conference on Saturday, but she wouldn’t get too specific about the upcoming work. “There are so many different feelings. Fear, tenderness, all kinds of things. It’s very complicated,” she said.

Asked if she had memories of making sandcastles, Ms. Bausch replied, “Every child makes sandcastles.” Of her work in general: “It’s something to see and not to talk about.”

Be that as it may, it was a treat to see her and be able to ask her questions. Ms. Bausch looks like a shy, German version of Georgia O’Keefe. She sat in a plush red chair with a rather modest and calm demeanor, not totally at ease with all the attention. She wore a large black jacket and loose pants by Yohji Yamamoto, a favorite designer and friend of hers.

She answered a few questions about her life. In the late 1950s and early 1960s she studied modern dance at Juilliard, then danced with the Metropolitan Opera under Antony Tudor. “I never thought I was going to be a choreographer,” she said, noting that she danced at the opera (in “Turandot” and “Carmen”) the year after Maria Callas left and that a sense of the great singer still hung around the place.

When asked if she still dances, she stretched her back with an introspective, almost sorrowful bow, looked down at her foot, and made a little circle with it on the floor. “I take my own class,” she said, smiling.

I found myself admiring her during the discussion when a self-righteous foreign journalist asked her, essentially, if she didn’t have a duty to make some overtly anti-George Bush statement because those stupid Americans had elected a Republican as president again? She basically told him to have another Danish and get lost: “The work speaks for itself. I try to speak about all of us.” When he pressed her on some mumbo-jumbo about “information,” she got a little testy. “Everybody has so much information. But I have my information on the stage.”

It’s a refreshing perspective. Ms. Bausch creates work so that we may see ourselves and enjoy the examined life. She may only be successful in reaching those who care about dance or have a taste for modern, neo-expressionist dance-theater. But she’s reaching out and searching for something in the human experience that we can all understand, grapple with, and think about. It’s not just her angst she’s thinking about. She’s got the big picture in mind.

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Valentina Kozlova, formerly of the Bolshoi Ballet and New York City Ballet, will be on stage this weekend in a performance to celebrate the 25th anniversary of her defection from the Soviet Union. But the program – which takes place Friday night at Florence Gould Hall (55 East 59th Street, 212-307-4100) – is really a showcase for the students of the Dance Conservatory of New York, the ballet school that Ms. Kozlova founded last year.

“It’s a student performance, with a guest artist,” she told me with a laugh.

What sets her school apart from others is its dedication to Vaganova technique.

Created by Agrippina Vaganova, the artistic director of the Kirov Ballet from 1930 to 1937, this style is the definition of Russian classical ballet (as opposed to Danish, French, Italian, or American).

While there are other teachers around town who pass this same technique on to students at various schools, Dance Conservatory is an institution devoted exclusively to this method of ballet. What this provides students is consistency: As they move from one ballet teacher to the next, they are still learning from the same method. Though students are offered other of styles of dance – hip-hop and jazz, for instance – all of their training in classical ballet is strictly Vaganova technique.

So seeing these young people dance is a bit like watching a classical work in progress. Students will be dancing excerpts from “Swan Lake,” as well as choreography by Ms. Kozlova and by Ms. Sappington. A Bulgarian character dance and a jazz piece created by two students are also on the bill. And these works weren’t chose at random. “It’s extremely important for students to see what they’re training for,” said Ms. Kozlova.

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If you spend enough time watching the performing arts, you will eventually hear every conceivable noise from your fellow audience members. There are people who suck their teeth, click their nails, or breathe so heavily you think you’re watching porn.

But I have never, ever, witnessed a more obnoxious display than on Wednesday night at the new Rose Hall in the Time Warner Center. During a performance by the completely adorable jazz singer Peter Cincotti, the four people sitting in front of me turned their heads and talked to each other at least once during every song. Three of them were clearly friends of someone who should know better: Tony Danza, who is a performer (of sorts) himself. But this gang of four didn’t care a whit that they might be distracting everyone behind them by leaning over into one another’s ears to whisper, nod, and giggle. Most likely, Mr. Danza and his three harpies were guests of the house, which would make such behavior even worse.

So good luck with your television show, Tony. How ’bout I bring a bunch of friends in the studio audience, talk over your jokes, and laugh at all the wrong times? I’m not sure I could find people rude enough to do it – or crazy enough to sit through the whole show.