Mixed bills in ballet usually proceed by the soup-to-nuts principle—frothy tutu concoction beside astringent modernist number beside pomo entertainment. Ballett Zürich’s spring program, Autographs, is nuts to nuts: three choreographers with a stylistic kinship at the peak of their idiosyncratic powers. These bold works—by the original ballet punk William Forsythe; the peripatetic Canadian Crystal Pite; and the Royal Ballet’s resident choreographer, Wayne McGregor—convey in entertaining civilian terms the position in which they’re putting poor old ballet. Forsythe’s 1987 In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated slyly suggests an equation between the neo-mannerist steps and the goofy swagger by which the dancers come and go as if no one is watching. McGregor’s Infra, two decades later, is also about what usually doesn’t meet the eye. What does appears along Infra’s back wall: LED stick figures ambling from wing to wing in an endless loop. Downstage, the real-life dancers turn themselves inside out in an anatomical exposé. As for Pite, the Forsythe alum has made a career of exploring all manner of moving masses: migration, weather patterns, and, with Emergence, a buoyant insect swarm. —Apollinaire Scherr
The Arts Intel Report
Autographs

Dancers in the mixed-bill ballet Autographs.
When
Until June 11
Where
Etc
Photo: © Ballett Zürich