Onstage: New Works

By Julie Mullins
CityBeat

It’s time for Cincinnati Ballet’s annual New Works mixed repertory program, kicking off the company’s season Sept. 6. The sensuality and inner workings of a handful of various local, national and international choreographers’ new — and mostly contemporary — pieces are on display.

“It isn’t just movement for movement’s sake,” says Exhale Dance Tribe’s Missy Lay Zimmer, who choreographed a piece with husband Andrew Hubbard again this year. Sexual energy plays an important role in the couple’s untitled two-part work set to music from Over the Rhine. The Ballet’s on-site performance space becomes an ideal venue to see dance in an intimate setting.

The always-fresh, boundary-pushing program offers a rare glimpse into seeing the dancers’ energy and efforts up close and in diverse stylistic lights. Hubbard says it was important that dancers “learn to un-dance certain things so that certain things look more human and pedestrian and less choreographed, technical and classical.” Sounds like a good move.

8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday. Through Sept. 19. Mickey Jarson Kaplan Studios at Cincinnati Ballet Center. $45-$50. 513-621-5282.

Go here for ticket information.