REVIEW: Don't dawdle at 'Spring Works' intermission or you'll miss some of the heat ...

Except for the ever-amazing, ever-amusing “Minus 16,” which I could watch every season, all the pieces in Charlotte Ballet's “Spring Works” have unexpected affinities.

They use minimalist composers whose repeated patterns inspire a mild auditory trance. They’re dramatic, with scarcely a bit of humor. (You get plenty of that in “Minus 16.”) And they offer at least one moment where the dancers seem to be discovering how bodies work and what they can achieve.

That’s most evident in Helen Pickett’s “Tsukiyo.” (The title means “moonlit night”; it’s also a name Japanese mothers give daughters.) As mist rolls across the floor, and a dim orb peeps through the clouds, a lone figure rises, Eve-like, at the back of the stage. (Alessandra Ball James danced at the final dress rehearsal I saw.)

Her movements, wraithlike and uncertain, gradually gain confidence as a man (Josh Hall) tentatively approaches her. He may be a villager falling in love with a ghost – a common theme in Japanese literature – as he tries to win her to Arvo Pärt’s haunting “Spiegel im Spiegel,” a duet for ethereal violin and earthbound piano. His connection with her brings him joy, inadvertent pain and the frustration one gets from wanting the unattainable.

Things take a happier turn in the world premiere of Filipe Portugal’s “Stepping Over,” set to parts of Philip Glass’ “Tirol” Piano Concerto. Women fall or swoon into guys’ arms; couples move through positions that are sensuous and chastely romantic by turns. Bodies stay flexible, pliant, almost melting into place.

Portugal uses couples as building blocks for his designs. When a dancer finds himself without a partner, he shyly bolts offstage after a moment of self-expression. A pas de trois quickly breaks down, as one man leaves the group. In a final visual coup, dancers in the shadows form a long human chain that shifts slightly, yet one pair still holds our eyes at center stage.

After a first intermission, former Charlotte Ballet dancer Bryan Arias makes his local debut as a choreographer. (He was here in the ’00s, when it was still N.C. Dance Theatre.) He has interesting things to say but needs a more extensive dance vocabulary to sustain a 25-minute piece such as “When Breath Becomes Air.” (Ezio Bosso’s monotonous score doesn’t help.)

The strongest moments come in an aggressive ensemble opening and a pas de trois among Lexi Johnston, Sarah Hayes Harkins and Colby Foss, where they dance independently of each other, in sync or intertwined. Arias isn’t afraid of an adapted breakdance move or even a modified cartwheel. But the rest of the work, a series of pas de deux that repeat the same gestures, lack variety until one final, striking image of tenderness and rejection.

Ohad Naharin’s “Minus 16” closes the program. (What could follow its exuberant lunacy?) This is my third go-round, and I’ve concluded it’s about ecstasy, the body yielding to an irresistible impulse that could come from music, love, religion, social convention or anything at all.

Don’t stay out too long at the second intermission, because a hipster spends the first five minutes in front of the curtain, gyrating in lounge-lizard fashion to cha-cha numbers. (James Kopecky was a hoot Wednesday.) Naharin then takes us through a wild prayer circle, a duo of mutual consolation and a final, body-shaking return to mass dance hysteria. You, too, can groove when dancers come into the audience to recruit partners. Inhibitions will not be honored.

This story is part of an Observer underwriting project with the Thrive Campaign for the Arts, supporting arts journalism in Charlotte.

This story was originally published April 26, 2018 at 5:16 PM with the headline "REVIEW: Don't dawdle at 'Spring Works' intermission or you'll miss some of the heat ...."