Edward Villella is getting a tremendous sendoff as he eases out of his role as artistic director of the Miami City Ballet, the company he founded 26 years ago.

And the rest of us? We get to revel in his company’s brilliant success.

A packed house Saturday at the Kravis Center was treated to one of the world-premiere performances of Viscera, a piece created especially for the company by Liam Scarlett, a 25-year-old choreographing sensation from England’s Royal Ballet.

And what a great work it is. Villella, who commissioned it, may have discovered another Balanchine, Ashton or MacMillan.

Scarlett chose the First Piano Concerto of the contemporary American composer Lowell Liebermann for his music, and it’s an excellent choice. From the start, the dance captivates. What we see are beautiful, athletic bodies ready to dance. The women’s costumes were backless one-piece “swim” suits in hues of plum, red and navy. The men wore deep plum T-shirts and very short, tight-fitting boxer briefs of the same color.

The effect was to show off the lovely legs and backs of the women and the men’s muscular soccer-player thighs. Every costume was designed by the young choreographer for the look of fitness and ease of movement.

Viscera uses the dancers well. Its subtle changes in the makeup of each group are intriguing: first, two men, then three women, the corps, then a series of solos danced by the bubbly, energetic Jeanette Delgado. Scarlett’s work has all the elements of classical ballet with nods to the modernism what’s now known as the Rambert Dance Company and the like, and reflects what he himself called the “energy, passion, musicality and radiance’’ of Miami City Ballet.

It was the grouping of dancers that I found fresh and original. In many drills the corps de ballet dance with their backs to the audience, repeating flowing arm movements, exposing shoulder blades as they expand and contract. The drama is enhanced when they slowly face the audience. The dancers enjoyed every second of this piece, created especially for them.

The teaming of Delgado as Scarlett’s prima ballerina may have begun a fine pairing tradition; she performed his steps with exemplary technique. Pianist Francisco Renno and the orchestra, led by Gary Sheldon, were excellent.

After the Scarlett came Jerome Robbins’ In The Night. Three couples, the first pair dreamy and innocent; the second, more mature; the third, stormy and combative, enter and dance separately. At the end they waltz on to the stage together, meet and make friends. Using four Chopin nocturnes (night pieces), Robbins has created some clever choreography, with perhaps a few too many lifts. The overall feeling is clear insight into the lives of others through dance.

The first couple, Tricia Albertson and Didier Bramaz, was poetry in motion. The second couple, Cellie Manning and Isanusi Garcia-Rodriguez, was light as a feather, gliding along steadily. The third couple, Katia Carranza and Yann Trividic, was fun personified. Pianist Renno was again brilliant in his playing of the Chopin nocturnes.

Ballet Imperial, Balanchine’s tribute to Marius Petipa, father of classical ballet, ended the evening. Set to Tchaikovsky’s Second Piano Concerto, Renno and the 50-strong orchestra under Sheldon played beautifully once again.

This ballet recreates the time of Russia under the czars, when cities and even small townships had their own dance companies. It has no plot. The intricate line work of the corps de ballet takes shape in many different patterns, and combinations of patterns, that are the stamp and genius of the great Balanchine’s choreography.

Once more the delightful Jeanette Delgado, partnered by Reyneris Reyes, executed a most tricky pas de deux with skill and precision. She reminds one of the young Alicia Markova, bubbling over with the joy of life shown in her dancing. Reyes was the epitome of majesty; his solos were wonderful.

The trio of Tricia Albertson, Renan Cerdeiro and Didier Bramaz were the embodiment of sweetness and light. Albertson is so ethereal, reminding me of the late Merle Park in her quiet beauty. Costumes were white, white, white. And the dazzling tiaras, designed by Maria Morales -- these are czarinas, not peasants -- were magnificent, and even stayed in place.

The finale employs principals and the corps de ballet in an amazing display of leaps, interchanges, entrechats and line work. It dazzled and awed as you studied the total beauty of the ensemble on stage.

This was a memorable night of dance indeed, and Liam Scarlett is a great find.

Rex Hearn founded the Berkshire Opera Company and has covered classical music, dance and opera in South Florida since 1995.

If it’s true, as Sartre said, that Hell is other people, it isn’t a message that will find much support at Ballet Memphis.

The dance company, now celebrating its 25^th year, brought four dances to the Duncan Theatre on Friday night in the first of two performances (the show is repeated tonight). Twelve members of the 23-person troupe from the blues capital were on stage for a modest, intimate show that generally celebrated togetherness in a variety of pleasing, effective movements.

This is a traditionally oriented ballet company, despite the modernity of some of the moves presented Friday night; what you got was good dance, quite decently done. Standout work came from Crystal Brothers as the focus of two pieces, Curtain of Green, a Eudora Welty-inspired piece choreographed by Julia Adam to etudes by Philip Glass, and S’Épanouir, a dance Jane Comfort and the company set to the music of saxophonist Kirk Whalum, himself a Memphis native.

Brothers, a petite redhead, has a strong stage presence that she reinforced in Curtain of Green with quick, precise motions of her hands, feet and torso, a crispness that was in deliberate sharp contrast to the accompanying dancers. The story of a widow who cannot come to terms with her husband’s sudden death, the ballet recounts the events by opening with Brothers in a solitary chair, facing upstage left, back to the audience, as her husband, danced by Steven McMahon, falls to the ground repeatedly.

Adam has underlined the repetitive returns in Glass’ minimalist etudes by having them coincide with Brothers placing a hand on McMahon’s leg, or jumping quickly into his arms, moves she performed expertly. This kind of visual punctuation worked well to underline the hopelessness of the woman’s situation, which Brothers further emphasized with rigid hand movements, somewhat like a broken machine that tries to keep working, and two new placements of her chair, always looking somewhere else but apparently seeing nothing.

Kendall G. Britt Jr. joined the dance in the second half, silently drawing a circle on the ground before the second Glass etude began, and like McMahon, added a few gentle, supportive moves, but it was Brothers’ dance to dominate. Adam brought a nice touch to things by ending with Brothers drawing the same circle Britt first introduced at the opening of the dance’s second half.

If the large Duncan audience was cool to Curtain of Green’s somber colors and soundtrack, they were much happier with S’Épanouir, which musically travels from Eric Dolphy-like solo ruminations to a mildly funky jazz ditty that at last gives way to some gospel piano noodling. Comfort’s scenario for Whalum’s piece of the same name is about bringing a woman in crisis back into the community, and this was a dance that was suffused with warmth and good intentions.

Brothers was again wonderful to watch, believable in her sorrow, graceful and elegant in her traversals of the stage, and when lifted at the end from the floor by the company to finish the dance with a ride on a pair of shoulders, she was the embodiment of relief at the end of travail. The other seven dancers did fine work in bringing Brothers back into the human fold, dancing with her one on one, then pairing off in couples to further advance the message of solidarity. With Brothers in white and the other dancers in browns and burgundies, the piece had a sort of summer-of-love vibe about it, and its energy grew slowly along with the music. This was an energetic, often athletic dance with lots of ideas, which perhaps reflects the communal input into its choreography; it gradually warmed from the opening to the ending, getting busier and busier, and the ending was beautifully timed to the music and ideally expressive of it.

The evening opened with Being Here With Other People, a dance choreographed by McMahon, a young Scotsman, to the finale of the Beethoven Violin Concerto. Eight dancers in cranberry pink smiled relentlessly through the dance, whether in couples or in the full ensemble. Various dancers came out to wave at the other dancers or the audience, and there was a kind of cutesy head tic that was repeated throughout as a signature mannerism.

This was a nice dance to watch, but it didn’t have much cohesion, either as a scenario or in the ensemble dancing, which was rather loose. It’s a charming idea, but it didn’t ingratiate, perhaps because it needed some sharper set pieces inside it to make it memorable and winning.

The program closed with In Dreams, Trey McIntyre’s reading of six songs recorded by Roy Orbison, the pop bard of the lovelorn during the last years before Beatlemania. This is a dance with real invention, and the company looked sharp and snappy throughout. The five dancers, garbed in black urban-cowboy-with-appliqué, slithered and strutted for the opening song, Dream Baby, and there were good solo moments for each of the women: Julie Niekrasz, Stephanie Hom and Virginia Pilgrim.

The difference in McIntyre’s style of choreography, at least as represented here, is that he designs his dances from core units, generally couples, rather than thinking of a scenario and adding dancers to it. The result is a dance that looks like a muscle, with a group of dancers packed tightly and acting off each other rather than off the whole group.

It’s intimate, sexy and powerful all at once, and that McIntyre, and Ballet Memphis, could sustain the audience’s interest even while two dancers moved in opposite directions off the stage over a recording of Orbison speaking rather than singing, is testimony to the power of dance to say something fresh even when the musical background is stagey, or not even that.

Ballet Memphis repeats this show tonight at 8 at the Duncan Theatre on the campus of Palm Beach State College in Lake Worth. Tickets are $37. Call 868-3309 or visit www.duncantheatre.org.

Miami City Ballet opened its 26th season at the Kravis Center this weekend with a rousing performance of four diverse, contemporary works that ended with a standing ovation Friday night from a near-capacity crowd.

The evening began with George Balanchine’s Square Dance. This high-energy, technically challenging ballet was perfectly danced: Jeanette Delgado was the personification of joy, a 100-watt smile on her face, her feet moving so quickly it defied comprehension. Her partner, Renan Cerdeiro, was equally adroit and the pair together were riveting as they danced to the music of Vivaldi and Corelli.

The soft grays and blues of the costumes were just the right palette, creating a kind of visual trampoline for audience members to imbue with their emotions. Lines were danced with impeccable timing and coordinated movements. And the coming together of the square dancing partners was sheer exhilaration.

It was followed by Afternoon of a Faun, Jerome Robbins’ take on the celebrated Debussy tone poem. This was all ethereal beauty, so well-staged that every imaginable dramatic contrivance found its way into what was finally a very subtle interpretation of the transformation from innocence to sensual awakening.

Patricia Delgado danced the part of the young girl who interrupts the narcissistic reverie of a young male dancer regarding himself in a ballet studio mirror. The challenge of the ballet is for the dancers to play off the theoretical “fourth wall,” which is both the audience and the mirrored wall of the studio. Every movement in the pas de deux must be coordinated including sight lines as they would appear in the mirror.

Delgado paired with the very talented Yann Trivdic performed so beautifully and with such finesse it was possible to feel her trepidation and yet at the same time the inescapable tug of awareness across the room. The culmination in a kiss was so sensitive and the reaction so pure, it was hypnotic. Trivdic brought a major “wow factor” to the piece with his strong, sensual, commanding portrayal of the young man.

Liturgy, a modern bit of choreography by former Royal Ballet and New York City Ballet dancer Christopher Wheeldon, is set to a minimalist score by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. A duet danced by husband and wife Carlos Guerra and Jennifer Carlynn Kronenberg, Liturgy is a collection of sculptural forms achieved through balletic acrobatics that is simply stunning.

The tension is palpable -- it makes one feel as though you have just pointed a toe and are unable to let it relax. Setting the ballet within the confines of a dimly lit set added to the eerie, taut transformation from shape to shape, from high to grounded movements.

Finally, the exhausting flailing of Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room grabbed the audience hard and did not relent until they were on their feet applauding. Thirteen dancers garbed in throw-back Norma Kamali costumes danced at a frenzied pace reflecting Tharp’s much-noted practice of working dancers to their upper limits.

This is a ballet of strength and endurance, of wild sashays across the stage, of running shoes and red toe shoes, of clothing shed and pulses racing -- an ingenious way to end the program.

Set to the music of Philip Glass, on a stage infused with billowing smoke and enduring for more than 40 minutes, In the Upper Room had dancers moving on and off stage not only from the wings but from slits in an ebony backdrop.

The dancers were everywhere at once, as was the choreography, which embraced everything from swing dance to martial arts.

The evening was, in short, a triumph.

For three weeks about three months ago, the Miami City Ballet played Paris to loud, raucous standing ovations.

One lasted a full 10 minutes, according to founding artistic director Edward Villella. To Villella, and many of his dancers, this was a defining point in his career.

One of the programs that brought down the house at the Paris Opera will be performed Friday at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach, a program that contains four selections that run the gamut of ballet. Program 1 includes Jerome Robbins’ Afternoon of a Faun,

George Balanchine’s lively Square Dance, Christopher Wheeldon’s Liturgy and Twyla Tharp’s energetic In the Upper Room.

“I think part of the reason this program was so well-received in Paris is that the French audience is not normally exposed to this repertoire,” said Miami City Ballet principal dancer Jennifer Kronenberg, who stars in Afternoon and dances In the Upper Room and Liturgy. “The French have a different demeanor that suits what they do best -- the classical repertoire. They weren’t used to seeing the Balanchine and Robbins approached with such energy and enthusiasm.”

Kronenberg describes the experiences as “surreal, euphoric and dreamlike,” which perhaps may be how Villella, 75, felt when only a matter of weeks later he was asked to step down as the company’s artistic director.

“I danced for him for 17 years and it is hard for me to accept,” said Kronenberg, who like Villella is a native of Queens. “It is very sad. We can only enjoy him as much as we can while he is here and give as much as we can. It doesn’t get any better than Edward.”

It is ironic that Robbins choreographed Afternoon after observing Villella stretching and preening before a mirror in a rehearsal studio.

“My eyes were caught by the marvelous strange figure of a very young chap who was exploring some inward dream,” Robbins wrote in a 1997 speech he was to give while presenting Villella with a Kennedy Center Honors Award. He was unable to make the ceremony, but his handwritten speech is part of the archive at The Robbins Rights Trust.

“He was leaning relaxed against the bar. He seemed like some animal; young, beautifully shaped, and ready at any moment to develop into a young man. Then something happened. Slowly, he pushed his arms against the bar and stretched his legs backwards carefully, slowly, not paying any attention to the exercise given to the others.”

Robbins’ Afternoon, set to Claude Debussy’s tone poem of the same name, is very different than the famed Vaslav Nijinsky choreography and performance (1912), which featured a mythical faun dancing with a couple of nymphs. The Robbins pas de deux is set in a ballet studio and dramatizes a fleeting encounter between a young man absorbed by his reflection in a mirror and a young woman who interrupts this reverie. It is the first principal role Villella danced for New York City Ballet.

“It is about each of them coming into their own sensuality and sexuality,” explained Kronenberg. “They become enthralled with their own images in the mirror.”

The mirror is, of course, the fourth wall and the greatest challenge in dancing the ballet. During rehearsal dancers may use the actual studio mirror to play off one another and to manage sight lines. But once the fourth wall is removed, it takes a great deal of craft and finesse to keep the mirror trackable.

“You have to revert back to the studio and looking at yourself in the mirror and determine where your eyes would be,” Kronenberg said. “There is a moment when the boy and girl are looking at each other across the stage but in the mirror. This has to register with the audience. You have to be looking at the right place.”

A seasoned ballerina dancing the role of a jeune fille creates another set of challenges. Kronenberg said she needed to take care not to overdo the innocence or adolescent delight of her character and relied on her own memories in crafting the emotion of the role.

“There is a fine line getting the feeling of naiveté and self-exploration across to the audience without going overboard,” Kronenberg said. “You have to remember what it was like to be 14 or 15 when you had those butterflies in your stomach. How you reacted -- that little gasp when the hair on the back of your neck is standing up because a boy is looking at you.”

Kronenberg said she keeps it real by remembering her teenage feelings, especially the shyness: “The ballet really speaks to the self,” she said. “Jerome Robbins is amazing that way. If you let the choreography speak for itself, you don’t have to add much on to it.”

Diametrically opposed to the formality of Afternoon is the frenzied, gyrating movement of Tharp’s In the Upper Room, a phrase she uses to mean the point where a dancer believes he or she can no longer go on, but at which their mentality propels them to greater levels of strength and endurance. It is, in other words, a runner’s high.

Set to music by Philip Glass, the 40-minute ballet begins with two dancers dressed in what appear to be red and striped pajamas swinging limbs, stretching and kicking at hypnotic speed before a deep, dark backdrop of ebony curtain.

Tharp has arranged the 13 dancers into groups. In addition to the initial “markers,” who she has said represent Chinese Fu dogs, there are the running-shoe-wearing stompers and the pointe-shoe wearing bomb squad. As the pace and intensity of the movements -- jogging, martial arts, yoga, marathon dancing -- increase, and parts of costumes are shed, it is easy to see why Tharp has described her Upper Room choreography as “fierce, driving and relentless,” aiming to make some furiously fast unison moves “burn the retina.”

“The biggest point she wanted to make in this ballet is that this is what she does to warm herself up and what she gives the dancers to warm up, especially the movement of the stompers,” Kronenberg said. “It is how she moves and how she gets her blood pumping. She is merciless. When you work for her, you work until you are dead on the floor.”

Again by contrast, Liturgy, a contemporary pas de deux danced by Kronenberg and her husband Carlos Guerra, is a lyrical, sensual collection of sculptural shapes that correspond to the haunting style of Fratres, by the contemporary Estonian composer Arvo Pärt.

Pärt’s minimalism has been informed by chant, and therefore evokes a slow, meditative dream-like quality. “There is a beautiful build of the music as the choreography builds,” she said, and recalls learning to perform it the first time.

“I learned it about four years ago when the company premiered it. Whenever it has been on the program, I have been dancing so many other parts I haven’t been able to do it,” Kronenberg said. “I am thrilled Carlos and I get to do it together.”

The final selection of Program 1 is a classic -- Balanchine’s much-loved Square Dance with its freedom, energy and fast-paced intricate steps. First performed in 1957 with a square dance “caller” on stage, the ballet has been refined over the years. The “caller” has morphed into a moody, introspective male solo (1976), and the choreography polished to better reflect the score, which features music by the Italian Baroque composers Antonio Vivaldi and Arcangelo Corelli.

But the costumes remain loud, rowdy and good-natured, the footwork fast and filled with jumps, and even the more formal Parisian audiences were taken over by the joy of this piece.

“It is fabulous and timeless and the music is so happy and upbeat,” said Kronenberg, who stresses the technically demanding footwork. “It is one of the most challenging ballets out there for both the principals and the corps.”

The Miami City Ballet presents Program I four times at the Kravis Center: 8 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday, and 1 p.m. Sunday. Tickets: $19 and up. Call 832-7469 or visit www.kravis.org, or visit www.miamicityballet.org.

Before a painted scrim reminiscent of the 1975 Peter Weir film Picnic at Hanging Rock, Florida Classical Ballet Theatre opened its 11^th anniversary season Saturday with a beautifully performed rendition of Michel Fokine’s 1909 ballet Les Sylphides.

As part of a three-ballet program selected to evoke mood rather than tell stories, this classical ballet, which is given credit for being the first choreographed without a narrative arc, was indeed the perfect way to start what looks to be an interesting season for the Palm Beach Gardens-based company.

Les Sylphides was first performed at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg in 1908 with Vaslav Nijinsky as the poet and prima ballerinas Olga Preobrajenska, Anna Pavlova and Tamara Karsavina as soloists. The world premiere came by way of Sergei Diaghliev and his Ballet Russes in 1916 at the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris.

During the entirety of Les Sylphides, set to nocturnes, mazurkas and waltzes by Frederic Chopin, the corps de ballet remains on stage congregating in small groups reminiscent of 19th century Impressionist paintings. The ballet is a series of elegant dances performed by feminine forest sylphs with a single male poet.

In the hands of FCBT, it was light, frothy and very well done. Rogelio Corrales as the poet gave a flawless performance, and soloists Lily Ojea, Marinna Kus, Rebekah Levin, Gianna Beata and Johanna Hurmemaa were a joy to watch, each unique in her interpretation of this classic work.

Next up on the program at the Eissey Campus Theatre on Palm Beach State College’s Palm Beach Gardens campus was an original bit of choreography by the company’s executive director, Colleen Smith and Resident Artist Marshall Levin.

Le Petit Egarement (The Little Distraction) proved to be a somewhat amateurish romp set to French accordion music. Lots of little students sashayed across the stage wearing fuchsia berets, carrying red balloons or mugging in picture hats. What the ballet lacked in sophistication, it made up for in enthusiasm and pure energy. Marshall Levin as a mime was very engaging.

But still the dance lacked a center and relied too heavily on cliché and well-worn visual jokes. And then there was the unfortunate moment Saturday afternoon when one of the male soloists fell on top of one of the girls in the picture hats. Ouch!

The final dance, In the Mood, to music by Glenn Miller, Erskine Hawkins, Bill Johnson and Louis Prima, was a kinetic bit of entertainment with all the glamour of the Big Band era.

Choreographed by Smith, it was a very smart piece that stayed true to the ballet when it would have been easy to break into a Lindy or other dance of the bygone moment.

The ballet began with floodlights roving the front of the stage while period newsreels spoke of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It was all of a piece and expertly done – about 20 minutes long and featuring about 40 dancers.

The satin-doll costumes in an array of voluptuous jewel tones only added to the spectacle, and indeed, costumes throughout the performance were outstanding.

Florida Classical Ballet Theatre returns next month with The Nutcracker, which will be performed four times from Nov. 25-27 at the Eissey Campus Theatre in Palm Beach Gardens. For more information, call (561) 630-8235 or visit www.fcbt.org.