BalletNext, the acclaimed contemporary ballet company founded by former American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Michele Wiles, will return to the performance arena for its 2018 season at New York Live Arts, March 6-10. The 2018 season will feature four new works choreographed by Wiles, along with her return to performing on stage.

Vibrer fuses classical ballet with the improvisational flow of jazz, and continues Wiles’ partnership with Grammy nominated jazz trumpeter Tom Harrell. Harrell will perform Vibrer live from his latest album Moving Picture (August 2017 release) with long-time collaborator and recording artist Danny Grissett on piano. In Vibrer, the movements in the music are inspired by several distinctive jazz genres including New Orleans jazz and the music of French composer Olivier Messiaen. Vibrer propels six female dancers through space to reflect on time and personal history.

Follin is a world premiere that melds the dance of sign language with ballet. Co-choreographed and performed with deaf dancer Bailey Anne Vincent, this work featuring six females utilizes and expands on the intricate hand movements of American Sign Language. Follin surveys the experience of losing sound, the pervasive silence that remains, and the after effects. Set to music by Philip Glass and poetry by Robert Frost, the work will also feature a sign language interpreter as part of the performance. This work is named in honor of Vincent’s daughter who lost some of her hearing as an infant and is a tribute to deaf children as well as those who need to be heard.

Experience is a duet that explores the possibility of female partnering.  A work that features the vigorous physicality and strength of the female body coupled with music by Italian pianist Ludovico Einaudi’s composition of the same name, it is inspired by Wiles’ personal physical journey as a dancer through pregnancy, birth and rebuilding her performance dance strength. Experience embodies gender neutral strength, power and beauty.

The Pianist, set to Johann Sebastian Bach’s Concerto in D minor places five female dancers in a playful comedy suggestive of a modernized version of Edgar Degas’ masterpieces depicting ballerinas.  The work features a piano center stage played live as a flirtatious and charming piece with a surprising end unfurls.