When he is in his element, Matthew Neenan makes ballet seem like the most straightforward and revealing of languages. Without affectation, frou-frou, or bombast, though highly virtuosic, it bends to individuals even, or especially, when they’re in a group. The choreographer is most in his element at BalletX—”home,” Neenan has called the Philadelphia troupe he cofounded in 2005 just as he was getting serious about choreography. At BalletX, he moved in two directions at once: backward to learn his craft and forward to respond to the spirit of the day. His dances are full of story and character, of spunk, lowkey irony, and feeling. Their engine is music—often indie song. Their temperament, rising unalloyed out of dancing, is helplessly good-natured. This all-Neenan program returns to his first success, Broke Apart, from 2006; reprises the intriguing 2015 faceoff between doers and watchers, Show Me; and premieres Neenan’s 28th work for the company, in which, he says, he’s taking a new approach. —Apollinaire Scherr