A lagging economy and lack of sufficient donations has forced City Ballet, a dance production company located in Pacific Beach, to postpone the last show of its season until November, said managing director Jo Anne Emery. “We didn’t want to go forward with something when we didn’t have all the funding in place, thinking it’s going to come,” Emery said. “The money wasn’t there, and we weren’t going to jeopardize the future of the company by just going forward.” “Celebrate Balanchine” was slated to run May 7 to 9 and would have cost approximately $100,000 to stage, about half of which would have come from ticket sales, Emery said. The other half would have been funded through donations, which have waned in the last year due to the poor economy. “Last [season], when the economy kind of took a nosedive … that was just before our ‘Nutcracker’ performances, and it really effected ticket sales, but donations were still good,” Emery said. “This year, it is kind of the other way around. We’ve seen ticket sales starting to come back up, but it’s the donations that are going down.” The production is now scheduled for Nov. 5 to 7 and will be the opening performance of the 2010-11 season. The two-hour program will feature four dances choreographed by the late ballet master George Balanchine, who coached City Ballet’s artistic director Steven Wistrich in the 1970s. The company’s management team chose to postpone the show rather than cancel it because they had already invested money in permissions from The George Balanchine Trust to perform his dances and on choreography, which can be used for the production in the fall, Emery said. The rest of the show’s expenses would have been incurred during the actual performance due to the cost of renting the theater, lighting and costumes, hiring stagehands and ushers, and paying the dancers’ salaries, Emery said. The company now hopes that a matching donation challenge launched by long-time City Ballet supporter Fred Kiko and his friends will encourage new contributions. Earlier this year, Kiko pledged to match up to $70,000 in donations received by City Ballet before June 30. “We know that this economy is not going to be bad forever,” Emery said. “We are seeing things turning around, it’s just taking a little longer in the arts.” The company is also proceeding as planned with its annual patron fundraiser June 6 as well as its three-week Summer Intensive program, which will take place at City Ballet’s Pacific Beach studios, 941 Garnet Ave., beginning July 26. For more information about City Ballet, or to make a donation, visit www.cityballet.org or call (858) 274-6058.