BalletX New Voices Review
December 12, 2025 | Goodhart Hall – Bryn Mawr, PA, USA
At BalletX’s program at Bryn Mawr College, there is no sense of looking backward. Under the leadership of Artistic and Executive Director Christine Cox, the evening unfolds as a confident declaration of where ballet is headed and who is leading it there.
Featuring three world premieres and the return of a recent audience favorite, Igniting the Future of Dance: New Voices at Bryn Mawr offers not just an evening of performance, but a vision of ballet as fiercely alive, physically audacious, and creatively expansive.
Cox has often spoken about her belief that art should delight and give audiences goosebumps, and this program does both. It also uncovers something deeper about BalletX’s artistic identity. These are not dancers performing museum pieces or treating classical technique as a sacred relic.
BalletX honors ballet’s rigor by pushing it forward, exploring fresh ideas, movement play, and choreographic voices that feel unmistakably of this moment.
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BalletX New Voices Review
Every transition in this program is precise, clean, and powered with intent. BalletX is an undeniably athletic company, but also an intelligent one, where strength and musicality coexist seamlessly. This is ballet that feels urgent rather than ornamental.
For those who have never attended a dance performance but are drawn to athletics, BalletX offers an ideal entry point. Few art forms demand such simultaneous artistry and physical endurance.
Taken together, the works on this program feel like a sustained test of human perseverance, tenacity, and strength.
Cox’s curatorial eye is evident in the company she has assembled. Each dancer brings technical authority, individuality, and a willingness to take risks that define BalletX’s distinctive presence onstage.
The evening opens with Reawakening, choreographed by company dancer Itzkan Barbosa and set to a live percussion score performed downstage by Stahv Danker. Ballet performed exclusively to percussion is rare, and here it feels strikingly fresh.
The smaller ensemble of Eli Alford, Mathis Joubert, Jared Kelly, Skyler Lubin, Minori Sakita, and Barbosa proves formidable. This is a showcase of power in its purest form. Grounded, weighted, and relentless, the choreography demands strength not as embellishment, but as necessity.
There is something ritualistic in the atmosphere. Shadows cast behind the dancers suggest figures gathered around a fire, bound by rhythm and shared labor. The work emphasizes endurance over ease, revealing dance as a definitive expression of human perseverance.
The women’s pointe work is fierce rather than delicate, signaling fearlessness as much as technical mastery. The men, powerfully built and deeply grounded, provide partnerships capable of supporting risk and experimentation.
Originally premiered earlier this year and brought back by popular demand, Scales on the Wings of a Butterfly returns to a full house and earns a standing ovation.
Choreographer Noelle Kayser draws inspiration from microscopic imagery, including insect limbs, cellular reactions, and the patterned symmetry of diatom shells. What emerges is a world both strange and elegant, where entomology through classical form is reimagined.
The piece opens with the full cast piled atop one another, conveyed by a sudden shift in lighting that evokes an ant colony coming into focus. The lighting design mirrors the choreography’s surprises and transformations. Jewel toned costumes shimmer as the dancers shake, sway, flutter, and wag, gestures inspired by insect movement used for navigation, mating, and camouflage.
There is an almost cinematic quality to the soundscape, with an underlying texture that borders on sensory immersion. The darkness feels rich and enveloping rather than ominous.
Images of spiders, spindles, and black widows surface through intricate partnering and sculptural lifts. Ashley Simpson stands out with her long, spindly lines and aerodynamic presence, embodying the work’s hybrid elegance.
One of the most striking choreographic choices is the transformation of the hands. Instead of elongated, separated fingers typical of classical ballet, the dancers often move with webbed hands, subtly altering balance, aerodynamics, and line. Ballet’s familiar vocabulary is not discarded, but expanded.
Scales on the Wings of a Butterfly fully immerses the audience in its world. At times regal and at times uncanny, the work is beautiful not only in familiar symbols like butterflies and ladybugs, but in the deeper, stranger realm of insect life.
Ballet, the piece suggests, is not nearing its end. It is just beginning to explore what it can become.
Choreographed by company dancer Lanie Jackson, May I Cut In? offers a welcome tonal contrast to the evening’s darker works. Set to music by Astor Piazzolla, whose nuevo tango reshapes traditional tango by incorporating classical and jazz influences, the piece leans into lyricism and classical partnering.
The emotional posture of tango is present, though the movement language remains grounded in classical ballet. Arms are soft, phrasing is romantic, and the dancers revel in the choreography’s elegance.
While the piece hints at tango’s sharper edges, it succeeds as a light, graceful interlude that highlights the company’s stylistic range.
The program concludes with In the Wake, a world premiere by choreographic fellow Christian Denice, selected from more than eighty international applicants. This is the evening’s most intense offering, both physically and emotionally.
Built around themes of grief, ritual, and transformation, the choreography unfolds as a ceremony written into the body.
Movement originates from the core and never relents.
Momentum accumulates, breaks, and reforms in waves.
Dancers strike, share weight, hurl energy, and pass tension from one body to another.
The pacing mirrors grief itself, continuous rather than linear. Anger, inertia, heartbreak, and near collapse coexist.
One image lingers with particular force. Ben Schwarz repeatedly attempts to rise from the floor, only to be pressed back down, a stark embodiment of grief’s weight. The lighting echoes this emotional landscape, shifting through cold, ghostlike tones that suggest loss and disorientation. Limbs and hands become characters in their own right, shaping a narrative that feels visceral and deeply human.
Despite the work’s exhaustion and darkness, the dancers grow more powerful as it progresses. This choreography demands intelligence, grit, and unyielding stamina. Denice understands that a piece of this depth can only be realized by artists capable of sustaining both physical and emotional intensity.
BalletX proves itself equal to the challenge, earning another standing ovation.
BalletX brings good news to the ballet world. This company represents not only the next generation of dancers, but also choreographers, artistic leaders, and innovators who respect classical technique while refusing to let it stagnate.
Pointe work is fierce, ankle strength astonishing, and partnering fearless. Levity and grace coexist with raw force, an alchemy that defines BalletX’s identity.
Christine Cox’s vision is unmistakable.
Ballet is often misunderstood as delicate, when in reality it is among the most physically demanding art forms in existence. It requires endurance, pain tolerance, precision, and speed, all while making the impossible appear effortless. BalletX does not hide this reality. It embraces it.
There are those who run marathons. Then there are BalletX dancers.
This company is world class. More importantly, it is shaping the future of ballet with clarity, courage, and conviction. For longtime ballet lovers and first time audiences alike, BalletX offers a compelling answer to where ballet is going next.
Featured Photo of BalletX dancers Mathis Joubert, Skyler Lubin, Eli Alford, Minori Sakita, and Jared Kelly in Itzkan Barbosa’s Reawakening. Photo by Scott Serio.
