Aspen Santa Fe Ballet is the name of a small but powerful dance company whose company of dancers come from, you guessed it, both Aspen and Santa Fe.

I was thoroughly impressed with the skills and passion of ASFB’s young, and fierce company. The quality of their technique and the choreography of the three pieces presented absolutely rivals that of the bigger, more established companies we are accustomed to seeing here in Chicago. This specific performance took place at The Harris Theater

The three works never before seen in Chicago were, “Over Glow” by Jorma Elo, “Beautiful Mistake” by Cayetano Soto, and “Last” by Alejandro Cerrudo (resident choreographer for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago).

Though I enjoyed them all, “Over Glow” by Finnish choreographer Jorma Elo, really stood out for me as a piece of modern ballet choreography with the most stunning images and subtle messages about human relationships that I have seen in many, many years.

“Over Glow” was set to music by Mendelssohn and Beethoven, yet the dancers were clothed in the simplest modern sea green and pale blue frocks designed beautifully by Nete Joseph.  The women were all in short, modern, sea green, silk dresses and the men, shirtless with pale blue pants set against a bright golden cyclorama that looked like the sun coming up over a western plain.

“Over Glow” begins with six dancers in newly forming couples. Each couple had their own style of meeting and courting.  They couples appear to be awakening each other from a still sleep with the simplest of hand gestures, tiny finger movements that cause their new partner to spark and come to life. The dancers rise up and spin or dance and walk for and with each in the most beautiful organic ways.

Sometimes the couples tease each other and send each other off in the wrong direction, only to pull their partner back in with the most delicate and gentle “kick” or stroke from their partner’s hand or foot.

The brilliance of Jorma Elo’s choreography is how he manages to convey almost an electronic, modern feel to these courtship movements, yet never renders them cold or unfeeling.  The movements imply that the physical awakening occurring between each of these couples is an automatic response of their nervous systems, yet wholly original, naturally beautiful and unique to each of the couples as they occur.

Elo’s stunning and uplifting choreography is both modern and classical, organic and futuristic, almost robotic, at the same time which gives one a marvelous sense of clean, yet vigorous romanticism.

At one point in “Over Glow”, one of the female dancers winds down, or collapses and her male partner falls to the floor and touchingly nudges her lifeless body with his head but cannot reawaken her. Then two of the female dancers come and begin the delicate hand gestures, the finger wiggles, to restart her engine and she does get up and becomes a leader for all of the couples who come back to life fully and dance again as a unified group.

I was absolutely delighted and riveted by this piece and by the passionate technique of all of the dancers in Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Company, which I can only describe as meaty, satisfying and fully engaging to ballet aficionados. ASFB’s dancers are young and few in number and I expect great performances will continuously flow from this carefully selected group.

I highly recommend seeing Aspen Santa Fe Ballet while they are here in Chicago and would actively seek out their performances on tour in the future. For more on this wonderful dance company, visit  http://www.aspensantafeballet.com/.