DANCE

Canada Picks Ballet Director: Canada’s best-known choreographer, James Kudelka, has been appointed artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada, marking the first time that someone who rose to fame as a choreographer--and not a dancer--has been selected to head the company. Kudelka, 40, whose ballets have been performed in Southern California by the American Ballet Theatre, the Joffrey Ballet, San Francisco Ballet and other companies, will take up the post on June 1, replacing Reid Anderson, who is becoming artistic director at the Stuttgart Ballet in Germany.