BalletX presents its 2026 Spring Series

By now, most dance lovers know the origin story of our city’s exciting contemporary ballet company, co-founded by Neenan and Christine Cox when they were classical dancers. Today, Cox is the enthusiastic artistic and executive director of BalletX, and Neenan is an important voice in American choreography whose dances are performed all over the country.

Showcasing artistic development

The first half of the program serves as a retrospective. Broke Apart is an early work: Cox danced in the 2006 premiere alongside Tara Keating and James Ihde. (Keating and Ihde are still with BalletX, currently serving as associate artistic director and director of major giving, respectively). On the other hand, the 2015 premiere of Show Me “captured the company at full momentum,” according to the program notes. The pairing of these works paints a picture of artistic evolution encompassing the playful innovation that established the choreographer and the company.

Broke Apart portrays the development of artistic voice, and Show Me expresses it with confidence. The Spring Series wisely begins with Show Me, the more confident and impressive piece. Abstract and lively, its dramatic duets and shifts in tempo and formation highlight the artistry of Neenan and the BalletX dancers. Ashley Simpson partnered elegantly with Ben Schwarz, while Jerard Palazo and João Pedro Silva formed a dynamic pair in a tumbling sequence. Peter Weil and Minori Sakita’s lifts were moving sculptures of strength and grace. Yet there are the everyday gestures and recognizable movements, like a hip bump, that make Neenan’s work interesting and engaging.

A string quartet joined the dancers on stage to perform live selections from music by Padma Newsome, Aoife O’Donovan, and Christina Courtin. Show Me synthesizes forms seamlessly up to the end, the lights gradually lowering on dancers revolving like jewel box ballerinas as the music fades out.

Broke Apart suffers in comparison and in light of BalletX’s significant growth. Props fuel its examination of boundaries and obstacles as dancers manipulate and move among barricades. The barricades become inventive components of the movement, as when Skyler Lubin dances inside a cage until Jonathan Montepara tips it over. Dancers beautifully perform the deceptively complex choreography, but Broke Apart seems a bit contrived and underdeveloped, with an anticlimactic ending.

Providing more context would help the audience appreciate it. Viewers have grown accustomed to the visually and technically stunning—and often emotionally compelling—works of the last few seasons. Two watershed works, Neenan’s The Last Glass (2010) and Sunset, o639 hours (2014), marked such turning points for the choreographer and the company that some earlier pieces recall juvenilia, despite premiering to sold-out audiences. Underwhelmed at the theater, I realized later that Broke Apart would have blown me away in 2006. Back then, I had never seen ballet dancers in jeans performing to current music; I did not know what contemporary dance was. Today I am a huge fan, thanks in large part to BalletX.

New Neenan

Squares, the world premiere, signaled a return to the present and a look to the future, a master class in the choreographer’s and the company’s vital and still evolving repertory. A celebration of form and visual artistry, Squares is a collaboration between Neenan and composer Scott Ordway. Light, color, and movement filled the stage as Ordway filled the theater with electronic music, performed live from the rear of the stage. Lighting and scenery by Christopher Ash layered over the sound, underscoring the themes of patterns and shapes established by the movement. Costumes by Karen Young in four pale shades added to the effect. The grand scale, atmospheric score, and mounting intensity, all golden light and joyous energy, render Squares an alluring ritual that the audience joins through observing.

The three Neenan works in the 2026 Spring Series celebrate BalletX’s anniversary and ongoing partnership with the choreographer, while looking ahead to further growth. Now a larger company with a national profile, BalletX constantly mounts exciting new work and provides dance opportunities to Philadelphians of all ages, from pop-up performances and free community dance classes to the Dance eXchange program for kiddos. The success of BalletX shows that Philadelphians are hungry for contemporary dance (at press time, the Spring Series had nearly sold out) and we feel as loyal to our outstanding artists as our hometown athletes. The rest of the country is taking notice.

Editor’s note: Our team is proud to announce that our Readers Decide campaign has met its initial $10,000 goal, securing our spring coverage. But if you haven’t given yet, there is still time to join the campaign (running through March 31), and secure our coverage for summer.