He vants to drink your blood

Sacramento Ballet’s fall program is a Halloween costume party, an opportunity to appreciate an early George Balanchine classic, and a sassy modern piece by Trey McIntyre. Balanchine’s elegant Serenade (1934, set to Tchaikovsky’s “Serenade for Strings”) is steeped in geometric Russian tradition, yet forward-looking—there was an “ah” as the curtain rose, revealing the company’s statuesque female dancers in diaphanous white. McIntyre’s fast-moving, witty Second to the Ground (1995, to Kronos Quartet’s festive “Pieces of Africa”) features flirtatious bare-chested guys in baggy pants with suspenders and energetic, confident women in short skirts and tank tops. The ballet’s artistic director, Ron Cunningham, choreographed Dracula as a narrative ballet (to brassy mock-cinematic music by Anthony DiLorenzo) with sets and scene changes. The sensuous vampire whirls and twirls in two vast, formal capes (one black, one flaming red) as he attracts—then bites—picture-perfect high-society women. Some audience members came dressed up, too—including kids.

Dracula; 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday; $17-$68. The Sacramento Ballet at the Community Center Theatre, 1301 L Street; (916) 808-5181; www.sacballet.org. Through October 28.