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.

The coming dance season couldn’t open any hotter: The world premiere of a new work for the Miami City Ballet by a rising young British star.

But there are also plenty of other good things in the local dance world for 2011-12, including the State Ballet of Russia’s Swan Lake, the frenzy of champion ballroom dancers in Burn the Floor, and fresh work from local companies including Florida Classical Ballet Theatre.

Here are the highlights:

Miami City Ballet will introduce a new piece by Royal Ballet choreographer Liam Scarlett and perform two full-length classics, Giselle and Coppelia, in the coming season.

“We are thrilled and excited having finished our 25^th year, and we capped that off with a triumphant run in Paris,” said Edward Villella, the troupe’s founding artistic director, who announced last week he will retire in April 2013. “For this season, my idea was to make the first two programs reminiscent of what we did in Paris.

“The last two ballets are ‘Giselle’ and ‘Coppelia.’ I wanted to do those works because they are large ballets and they have very simple corps work. Because we lost 10 dancers, we have to rely a bit on our school of apprentices. It is programming based on practicality.”

(If for some reason you missed the triumph of the Miami City Ballet in Paris, all you need to know is that they received standing, screaming ovations, one lasting for 10 full minutes. Villella considers the experience the defining moment in his life.)

Program 1 will open the season Oct. 21-23 (Arsht Center) with Balanchine’s exuberant Square Dance, a hybrid of American folk dancing and classical ballet set to the music of Italian Baroque masters Antonio Vivaldi and Arcangelo Corelli. Jerome Robbins’ Afternoon of a Faun, a duet that tells the story of a young man obsessed with his image in a mirror and the woman who interrupts his reverie, is also part of the program along with Christopher Wheeldon’s haunting pas de deux Liturgy, and Twyla Tharp’s masterwork In the Upper Room. (Program I also can be seen Oct. 28-30 at the Broward Center and Dec. 9-11 at the Kravis Center.)

Perhaps the most anticipated dance event this season is MCB’s presentation of Scarlett’s new ballet, which will be performed as part of Program II starting Jan. 6-8 (Arsht Center; Jan. 27-29, Kravis; Feb. 3-5, Broward). Scarlett was commissioned to create what represents his first work for an American company.

Villella met the 24-year-old choreographer in London almost two years ago and was blown away by a ballet he choreographed for the Royal Ballet.

“This young man has an incredible future before him,” he said. “His potential is remarkable. I asked him to do a ballet for us with the stipulation there would be a minimum of costumes, and no sets. It had to be a ballet that is not lavish in its production and he agreed. He came in January for three weeks and in two weeks he had accomplished the ballet, and the third week he polished it.”

Rounding out the program are Robbins’ In the Night, danced to nocturnes by Chopin, and George Balanchine’s Ballet Imperial, a contemporary tribute to Marius Petipa and Tchaikovsky.

Program III is Giselle, with its beloved Adolphe Adam score, set for Feb. 17-19 at the Arsht, Feb. 24-26 at the Broward Center, and March 9-11 at the Kravis. Program IV, Leo Delibes’ Coppelia, opens at the Broward Center from March 23-25, travels to the Arsht from March 30-April 1, and finishes at the Kravis on April 13, 14 and 15. (For more information: www.miamicityballet.org or (305) 929-7010.)

Fresh off a 10-day tour of Cuba, Florida Classical Ballet Theatre opens its 11^th season with a new work by founder Colleen Smith. Titled In the Mood, it’s an evocation of the World War II era, with popular Big Band and Hollywood music of the time. Officials with the Palm Beach Gardens-based company say it will be danced with a full orchestra when it takes the stage Oct. 15 at the Eissey Campus Theatre.

FCBT also will present its annual mounting of The Nutcracker (Nov. 25-27), and in March, Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, with Lily Ojea and Rogelio Corrales in the lead roles. Smith has another original work in mind for June 12, a piece called Wonderland and Other Dances, with Alice and the gang from Lewis Carroll’s classic tales and sets by Jupiter-based artist Pamela Larkin Caruso. (Tickets and times: www.fcbt.org or (561) 207-5900.)

The Duncan Theatre at Palm Beach State College in Lake Worth always offers a well-attended season of contemporary dance, and this year Duncan director Mark Alexander has put together another lineup of cutting-edge troupes. The Duncan season begins with Ballet Memphis (Jan. 20-21), which like MCB is celebrating its 25^th season. The Memphians’ program includes Trey McIntyre’s In Dreams, to songs by Roy Orbison, and S’Epanouir, a dance by Jean Comfort to a contemporary score by Kirk Whalum.

Chicago’s Luna Negra Dance Theater, founded by Cuban-born Eduardo Vilaro in 1999 as a showcase for Latin dance, arrives next (Feb. 3-4), with a three-work program: Solo una Vez, by Luis Eduardo Sayago, Naked Ape, by Fernando Hernando Magadan, and Flabbergast, by company director Gustavo Ramirez Sansano.

Tom Mossbrucker’s Aspen Santa Fe Ballet comes to the Duncan on Feb. 23 and 24; its program had not been finalized at presstime, but this small, prestigious, edgy company prides itself on its history of commissioning new work, and has featured pieces by McIntyre, Tharp and Nicolo Fonte. Finally, on March 23-24, it’s a return appearance for Pilobolus, the uniquely acrobatic shape-shifting company that finds remarkable things to do with bodies as objects. (Tickets and information: www.palmbeachstate.edu or (561) 868-3350.)

The Kravis Center for the Performing Arts has an eclectic season including Kings of Salsa (Nov. 25), choreographed by Roclan Gonzalez Chavez, a high-energy celebration of traditional and contemporary Cuban dance styles. The Moscow Classical Ballet brings The Nutcracker to the stage Dec. 21-24, during the time when the now-vanished Ballet Florida used to mount its version of the holiday staple.

For those whose ballet hearts remain with the Franco-Russian tradition, the State Ballet Theatre of Russia offers an evening (Jan. 8) of highlights from three classic Tchaikovsky ballets: Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty and, of course, The Nutcracker. The men-in-drag company of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo brings its comedic take on ballet to the Dreyfoos on Feb. 2, followed Feb. 12 by Forever Tango, an all-Argentine show that celebrates the South American nation’s most durable dance export.

Meanwhile, at the Kravis’ Rinker Playhouse, Ronald K. Brown’s Evidence Dance Company performs Feb. 21 and 22. An African-American troupe directed by Alvin Ailey alumnus Brown, Evidence will perform Brown’s On Earth Together, set to songs by Stevie Wonder.

One of America’s greatest dance companies, Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet, presents a program March 31 of three works: James Kudelka’s Pretty BALLET, to music by Bohuslav Martinů; After the Rain, choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon to music by Arvo Pärt; and Julia Adams’ Night, with a score by Matthew Pierce. Last up is Stomp (April 20-22), the almost uncategorizable, fascinating agglomeration of dance, sound, lights -- and a bunch of people hitting things like garbage-can lids. (Tickets and information: www.kravis.org or (561) 832-7469.)

The exciting young dance master Rasta Thomas comes back to South Florida with his Bad Boys of Dance company for two shows on Nov. 19 at Stuart’s Lyric Theatre. Also at the historic theater in downtown Stuart is Flamenco Express (Feb. 22-23), starring headliner Jessica Pacheco (former wife of Monkey Davy Jones, a Wellington resident). (Tickets and information: (772) 286-7827 or www.lyrictheatre.com.)

And of course, there’s always The Nutcracker, Tchaikovsky’s ever-popular 1892 ballet about a young girl’s Christmas party that has one of the most beloved scores in ballet and music history. You can get your fix of the Mouse King and the Sugar Plum Fairy at these performances:

Florida Classical Ballet at the Esther Center, Palm Beach Gardens, Nov. 25-27

Florida Arts and Dance at the Lyric Theatre, Stuart, Dec. 8

Arts Ballet Theatre of Florida, Aventura Arts and Cultural Center, Dec. 9-11

Miami City Ballet at the Adrienne Arsht Center, Miami, Dec. 15-18

Arts Ballet Theatre of Florida, Parker Playhouse, Dec. 16-18

Moscow Classical Ballet, Kravis Center, Dec. 21-24

Miami City Ballet, Broward Center, Fort Lauderdale, Dec. 21-24

What resonates in your mind’s eye after watching Monger, the evening-length work by choreographer Barak Marshall, is the astonishingly original movement.

With the fusion of highly arresting visual images, an extremely diverse music score and such powerfully athletic and gestural movement, Marshall has created an absolutely original portrayal of oppression.

Monger reveals the busy “downstairs” life of a group of servants that is dictated by the invasive presence of the mistress of the house “upstairs” who, though never really present, makes her perpetual demands to the servants on an old-time radio mic, conjuring up images of World War II radio shows.

Layered over the entire work is a veil of ever-changing ethnicity that seeps from one section to the next, driven by the score, an intriguing patchwork of music styles ranging from rock to classical to Romanian gypsy music. This “it could be anywhere” aura is also aided by the varied costumes, which seem to evoke pre-war America’s WPA, black-garbed Victorian nannies and contemporary women for sale.

The stark stage lighting divides and isolates the space as various cleverly choreographed vignettes touched on the real lives and feelings of the servants; the underlings. At times, it’s humorous and quirky. At other times, sad and poignant.

But all the time, the movement races as the dancers perform this wonderful choreography with its distinctive rhythmic gestures.

Monger tells a story. One of the beauties of dance as an art form is that one can make one’s own personal interpretation from the loosely formed, symbolic story line in the dance. This is a story about power and its effects. Barack Marshall has created a layered and intelligent work that weaves his multicultural heritage with his multi-generational artistic inheritance and captures our imagination with his images.

Unfortunately, because of unforeseen circumstances, the originally scheduled dance company from Israel was unable to perform Friday night at the Duncan Theatre. A young Los Angeles-based company called Bodytraffic, for whom Marshall is a choreographer, quickly learned Monger so that the work could still be performed as part of the Duncan season.

The dancers should be highly commended for their performances considering they learned the entire work in three weeks. An amazing feat, especially as the unusual choreography is very demanding, requiring a great deal of stamina and movement articulation, and that the dancers use their voices in a variety of ways.

However, considering the theatrical variety of Monger, this was not a rich interpretation of the work. The performance was danced well enough but it was just not theatrically weighted enough.

It is a work that is truly dance theater, and whether it was the lack of rehearsal time or perhaps the lack of experience in the tradition of dance theater in the United States, this performance just did not take off as it should have, considering the quality of the choreography. It should have just been electric.

Barak Marshall’s Monger will be repeated tonight at the Duncan Theatre on the campus of Palm Beach State College in Lake Worth. Tickets for the 8 p.m. concert are $37. Call 868-3309 or www.duncantheatre.org.

Following impressive performances at the Arsht Center, the Miami City Ballet’s production of Romeo and Juliet, which opens tomorrow at the Kravis Center, is quickly establishing itself as the company’s newest, and biggest, hit.

The company is mounting legendary South African choreographer John Cranko’s setting of the story, to the 1940 score by Sergei Prokofiev.

Part of the buzz generated comes as a result of the real-life lovebirds dancing the lead roles on opening night. Soloists Jennifer Carlynn Kronenberg and Carlos Guerra have been married for five years (officially on May 1) but have only been Romeo and Juliet for a weekend. But so far, they have given electrifying performances.

During a recent phone interview, Kronenberg struggled to find the words to describe the experience of doing this ballet with her husband. When she finally talks, she calls it “fulfilling,” and adds “probably the most special weekend I have ever experienced.”

That is to say a lot. She has danced plenty of beautiful roles, both contemporary and classical, but this role was magical for her, given the fact that the same rush Juliet experiences she too felt not so long ago.

Although the attention seems to revolve around the graceful pair, they are not the only ones committed to the lead characters in this production, which celebrates the company’s 25-year anniversary. Haiyan Wu, who played Juliet during the Saturday matinee at the Adrienne Arsht, embodied the innocence, youth and impulsiveness of this Shakespearean character just as well. In the arms of her Romeo (danced by Yann Trividic) she moved like a feather and carried out rehearsed gestures and reactions with a spontaneity that made them seem as if the thoughts had just entered her head.

The expression after receiving her first dress from her mother, Lady Capulet, (Act I) is of a jovial sheltered girl whose surroundings could not be more beautiful and safe. As the story evolves, the young girl finds herself making important grown-up decisions, such as marrying Romeo in secret.

By the third scene of Act III, Juliet contemplates whether to take the sleeping potion that would temporarily make her appear dead. She grabs the bottle, then drops it and moves away from it. She hesitates at the horror of what she is about to do and the suffering it would bring to her parents.

Then she remembers this is a small necessary sacrifice in order to be with Romeo forever. She drinks it and crawls back to bed.

The transformation Juliet undergoes from fragile to defiant, naïve to mature, made the role irresistible for Kronenberg. “She is so complex,” she said.

Acting is a very big part of this production, from the carnival clowns, whose synchronized steps make the audience laugh, to the authoritative figures of Verona, whose entrance to the stage is announced with Prokofiev’s commanding music. Funny marketplace exchanges, gossip, and sword duels provide an entertaining pause from the dreamy romantic spell achieved beautifully in several scenes including the balcony pas de deux.

Romeo, calling out to Juliet, appears strong and vulnerable at the same time. Juliet, still cautious, decides to follow her instincts. This is Kronenberg’s favorite scene.

Those attending should not expect the strong makeup, dark costumes or aggressive moves of a Swan Lake. That is Tchaikovsky’s tale of betrayal and deception. This is about a young impulsive love that refuses to be rationalized and keeps its promises. It is also about passion and loss.

There is no black-swan metamorphosis, nothing close to Giselle’s insanity and no explosive fouettés or any of the steps that traditionally let a dancer show off and get an audience on their feet. And that is the amazing thing: that considering the ballet has no single distinctive highlight, it still makes spectators stand up and remember it vividly long after the curtain falls.

At the absence of flamboyant displays and costumes the performance’s real strengths emerge. We then appreciate the light fabrics that seem to float around the stage, the music marrying the soft duets, the tender sequences and lifts, the backdrops. That it appears sweet and delicate does not mean this is an easy ballet to interpret. It takes a very skilled athlete or dancer, to make something look soft, effortless and relaxed.

Kronenberg says the role is physically challenging and requires great stamina, but above all, is very emotionally taxing.

All the sacrifice and risks seem to have paid off for the company. A poorly conceived set or miscalculation could have turned this production into a real tragedy. Fortunately, Edward Villella, the founding artistic director driving this group of 50 dancers, took careful steps. For Villella, it has never been about being reckless, which can turn into disaster, but being cautious, which could lead to extraordinary.

“My strategy was to proceed carefully and steadily, evolving rather than over-extending,” he writes in the program booklet. “Of course there’s never been enough money. Of course there have been countless crises, setbacks, heartaches. But slowly and surely we grew and prevailed.”

The production may not feature the sharpest leg extensions or wildest leaps, but still manages to convey great emotion. It makes us notice every single character and care about them.

If the flirtatious gypsies don’t get a kiss from the boys, no big deal. But when we see Juliet’s nurse anxiously looking for Romeo to hand him Juliet’s letter, we want to tell her Romeo is right there, in the left corner of the stage, lost in his thoughts of the young beautiful girl he has just met. We can see him. Can’t she? Instead, his partners in crime, friends Benvolio and Mercutio, point the way.

One of the sweetest scenes is the morning after their secret nuptials, when the lovers wake up locked in an embrace. This is how the second act opens and it draws an automatic unanimous response from the audience. The next time they lie together it will not be such a happy event. But in that moment, their love, lit by the sunrise, seems very real and pure. A conflicted Romeo, who has been ordered to leave Verona, is then seen struggling with the decision to leave Juliet behind.

Everything seems so well-structured that is hard to think of an instant that falls short. I ask Kronenberg instead, for any detail or event that deserves attention and could go unnoticed by the audience. She cannot think of anything but reminds me to always keep an eye on the corners of the stage or the background, where subtle things (a wink or a glance) usually happen while a major scene develops in the center.

I am confident I did not miss anything until Kronenberg mentions the Capulet House’s ball in the first act. Something else is going on with Romeo and Juliet, according to her.

“They are having a moment,” she says.

The Miami City Ballet’s production of Romeo and Juliet is set for 8 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturday, and 7 p.m. Sunday. The show then heads to the Broward Center in Fort Lauderdale for performances from April 29-May 1. For Kravis tickets, call 832-7469 or visit www.kravis.org.

The Trey McIntyre Project reinvented itself Friday night with an evening of fabulous dancing to the music of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band and Roy Orbison.

What made the high-speed and energetic dancing in Friday’s performance at the Duncan Theatre in Lake Worth so engaging is something subtle and quiet. Perhaps it’s all captured in the word “project”: This company does not call itself a company, but a project. It’s a long-term, dedicated undertaking to developing the artistry of the performers and choreographer Trey McIntyre.

The breeding ground for this artistic project for the last two years has been in Boise, Idaho, where the team works long and hard to perfect the dances that will tour. But when they are onstage, things really synthesize. You can feel the project’s collective freshness as they hit every movement nuance with verve and passion, and you can appreciate McIntyre’s outstanding talent as a choreographer.

The music of New Orleans is the source and inspiration for the first and last works on the program. McIntyre choreographed Ma Maison in 2008 and last week premiered his second commission for the New Orleans Ballet Association, The Sweeter End, at the Mahalia Jackson Theater with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band performing live.

Ma Maison is a ghoulish but lighthearted celebration of death and life in Mardi Gras style and with a quirky flair. With a deceivingly unstructured look that is highly choreographed, the expertly executed, fast-paced movement literally danced around the sparse notes of the music in the funeral marches. The wonderfully zany costumes were worn with a full skeleton mask that completely hid the face so that the body and movement quality of the dancers were accentuated.

Chanel DaSilva gave a strong performance of clarity and sheer energy. An upbeat ensemble section included a polished duet with DaSilva and her pirate harlequinade partner Brett Perry, as well as a striking moving tableau of street -fair revelry. Ilana Goldman and Annali Rose also gave strong performances. The tall John Michael Schert had amazingly fluidity in his movement and has beautiful legs and feet.

The second work was a premiere by the Project that originally was choreographed by McIntyre for Ballet Memphis in 2007. In Dreams is an outstanding work set to a collection of Roy Orbison songs and it nicely balanced the program. A quintet, performed on pointe by the ladies, was a never-ending combination of unusual gliding steps and grounded skips. In one beautiful section, surprise lifts evolved out of a string of five dancers working their way across the stage.

Lauren Edson was spectacular in her solo, and in the stop-and-start duet with Dylan G-Bowley, a terrific partner.

The last work, The Sweeter End, took another look at New Orleans but this time in a more urban post-Katrina view though it still pulled from the city’s heyday, interspersing some period costumes and movement motifs from the Charleston. It began with DaSilva as a graffiti artist throwing herself into athletic lifts with three men.

Perry was simply amazing, Rose was beautiful, and Jason Hartley’s solo was striking. Schert looked like he didn’t have a bone in his body, and Ashley Werhun’s duet with Perry was excellent. Every dancer had his or her moment to move and each one moved so differently, like one musician after another highlighting their instruments by improvising during a jazz performance. It looked totally spontaneous, but was precise and technical.

Like Ma Maison, The Sweeter End finished with a series of choreographed bows that delighted the audience. McIntyre then surprised them with an ensemble encore before the curtain closed on the party, where by now we all wished we were.

The Trey McIntyre Project repeats this program tonight at the Duncan Theatre on the campus of Palm Beach State College in Lake Worth. Tickets for the 8 p.m. concert are $37. Call 868-3309 or visit www.duncantheatre.org.