I moved to Houston because the Mr. got a job at Compaq. I pictured South Fork Ranch and wanted a house with a tile roof.

"Honey, you have been watching too much TV, that's Dallas," my real estate agent told me. My sole association of Houston came from the wrong TV show and a brief scene having to do with a telex machine in the offbeat film, Local Hero. I knew nothing and no one. I thought I was heading to a cultural desert, not the rich swampland of arts activity we know Houston to be.

This city is full of people who moved here because of husbands, wives, jobs, boyfriends and such. It's full of another set of people who moved back home to be closer to their families. (Bless you people.) Imagine this, people moving here because it's a good place to be an artist. Leave it to the Arthropologist to find them.

When Cynthia Harada graduated from University of California at Irvine, she had a lot of options. It's one of the top college dance programs in the country. She just so happened to befriend a certain graduate student, former Houston Ballet dancer Caleb Mitchell, who first put the idea of Houston in her head.

"Caleb told me to audition for The Houston Met Dance Company," remembers Harada. "He thought it would be a good fit for me and he was right."

Mitchell knew his stuff too, he has had a long association with the spunky urban troupe. Harada took Mitchell's advice and came out to audition, aced it, and is now an apprentice with the company.

"People are so nice. OK, it's hot too," admits the California native. "Houston has such personality, it's not cookie cutter like Southern California."

These days, Harada looks at home in a pair of tap shoes rehearsing for a school show. A ballet dancer by training, Harada finds the Met's contemporary jazz repertory pushes some new artistic buttons.

"My feet hurt and it's not pointe shoe pain," she says. "I feel new muscles working everyday."

Harada wasted no time in checking out the rest of the dance scene, attending Hope Stone's Lemonade Stand and other dance events. "It's important to me to be in thriving dance scene," she says. "I'm so impressed with the Museum district too."

Harada is already well settled in the Heights.

"It's so cute," she enthuses. "I love all the little shops and cafes."

Mitchell, now an assistant professor at Belhaven University, continues to keep an eye on his young friend.

"He texts me telling me where to get the best smoothie," she says. As for the Houston roadsters, "In Los Angeles, we are way more aggressive, but it's going to take me a while to figure out your freeway system."

You can catch Harada in motion on Oct. 27 in "Swing, Jive and Pop into Dance" at Miller Outdoor Theatre, and again on Nov. 13 on the Wortham stage in Quirky Works.

Bree Edwards returned to Houston to assume the position of director of programs at University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts. Edwards is also the co-founder of Be Johnny, a video design firm for stage, architecture and public art. Edwards and her partner in life and art, Johnny DeKam, have worked with Dream Theater, Adam Freeland, and The Glitch Mob, among others.

"When I first came here back in 2003, I was impressed with how art collectors had local artists on their walls, they were supportive of the local arts community" Edwards says. "I missed that when I left. Organizations like The Orange Show, Project Row Houses and Aurora Picture Show could only happen here."

After being on the road with various bands, Edwards was ready to live in one place for a while.

"The scale of the city and the accessibility of visiting artists at exhibitions drew me back to the city," she says. "The affordability is a big plus too. There are more working artists making a living here."

In her Mitchell Center role, Edwards is deeply immersed in several projects, including Media Archeology, a collaboration with Aurora Picture Show opening Thursday night at the Menil Collection; Marc Bamuthi Joseph's residency as part of Life is Living, a hip-hop based environmental justice festival at Emancipation Park on Nov. 6; and strengthening the UH Minor in Interdisciplinary Art (IART).

"Working with an amazing group of selected UH faculty and artists from the community, we are using the IART minor as a platform for expanding the definition of art at UH," Edwards says. "Our emphasis is on students working collaboratively, with each other and with the community. We are also focused on learning about the social role of art in society."

In her other life, as executive producer of Be Johnny, Edwards and DeKam are collaborating with Anthony Brandt of Musiqa for Music With Camera as part of Dance With Camera on September 23 at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. With Alvin Lucier's "Queen of the South" as the centerpiece of the program, expect an interactive event and live camera work.

For bass baritone Daymon Passmore choosing between New York and Houston was a no-brainer. Like any aspiring opera singer, Passmore travels from gig to gig, so having an affordable home base is where it's at. Passmore got his first taste of Houston after singing with Opera in the Heights (OH!) last season.

"It's not just that it's cheap to live here, there's a lot of opera companies in Houston. With OH!, Houston Grand Opera, Ebony Opera and Sugar Land Opera, there are numerous opportunities here," Passmore says. "I love the early music scene here and there's plenty of church work here too."

Passmore is excited to call himself a Houstonian these days, even though he's on the road most of the time. He sings the role of Crespel in Tales of Hoffman opening at OH! on September 23.

"It's a tragedy, yet it's fun too, and full of favorite numbers," he says.

You will be able to catch Passmore again in OH! productions of Don Carlo and Pearl Fishers. As a young, single guy, Passmore appreciates the diverse social scene here.

"It's a great place to meet people," he says. "There's something very stylish about this city and its people."

And what about the fresh crop of new dancers in Houston Ballet? I got a chance to see the entire talented bunch in motion last weekend at "Body, Soul and Gershwin," specifically in Kylián's masterwork Forgotten Land.

The company's newest principal, Jun Shuang Huang, impressed with his elegant stature, making a perfect partner for Mireille Hassenboehler. Soloist Melissa Hough electrified the air with her dynamic attack and lightening-charged speed. Rupert Edwards and Karina Gonzalez added depth and polish as well.

You can enjoy the newcomers along with the veterans for the next three weekends at Wortham. Come to think about it, every single dancer in the troupe has come here to be an artist at Houston Ballet. This spring, they will make history as the company who moves into the largest ballet building of its kind in the United States.

Tomorrow, I will don a hard hat for my first tour of the Houston Ballet's Center for Dance one more feather in this destination arts city's cap.