By Steve Sucato

Primed to chase away the winter doldrums, Ohio Contemporary Ballet (OCB) returns to the University of Akron’s E. J. Thomas Hall on Saturday, February 28, 2026, with Ballet Unbound*. The mixed repertory program will showcase four diverse dance works, including two premieres.  

Choreographer Avree Walker’s commissioned work for OCB, “Eternal,” is a world premiere danced to music by Johann Sebastian Bach, including selections from his “Magnificat in D Major.” The 19-minute contemporary ballet for the full company is a grand and joyous piece inspired by celestial bodies: the moon, sun, and stars. 

Walker, the Artistic Director of the City of Las Vegas Live Arts Institute, says of the ballet: “The dancers represent the vast and infinite capacity of our universe. They have the power to make an explosive impact as artists and athletes, which, for me, is such a wonderful experience to witness. The depth that the dancers possess is as wide as the world around us. They have the ability to fill the space with celestial magic.” 

The program’s second premiere is the Northeast Ohio debut of Nycole Ray’s “Opaque.” Ray, a former Artistic Director of Dallas Black Dance Theatre: Encore!, originally created the work in 2015. 

The work draws inspiration from a period in Ray’s career when she felt excluded and lacked communication and transparency in the workplace.  “Those not-so-happy feelings then evolved into something that made me feel good and positive. I decided to interpret that non-communication in a different way,” says Ray.

Danced to music by British composer Max Richter, “Opaque” is another full-company work in which OCB’s dancers wear floor-length black skirts, creating the illusion of floating across the floor. The 20-minute modern dance piece, says Ray, has undergone several iterations since its premiere 11 years ago. That trend continues: a brand-new solo section has been created for OCB’s performance of the work, featuring a dancer in a stage-filling black skirt. Says Ray, that new section serves as a force that finally brings together a dance couple we see earlier in the work, who constantly reach for one another with feelings of love and tenderness but are pulled apart for whatever reason. 

“I like dance works that are intentional and full of drive,” says Ray. “There has to be something about them that touches you and makes you sit up in your seat. For me, you have to go through rises and falls in a ballet for it to be complete.”

OCB is the first company outside Dallas Black Dance Theatre’s family of dance troupes to perform “Opaque.” Says Ray of working with OCB’s dancers, “I really couldn’t have asked for anything more. The dancers have given their all, and I am very grateful for that.”

Joining “Eternal” and “Opaque” on the program will be a reprise of modern dance icon Paul Taylor’s masterwork, “Airs” (1978). Danced to music by George Frideric Handel, the work, steeped in classicism, formality, and lyricism, reflects images of air and water currents.

The 25-minute work’s cast of four women and three men move in spatial patterns that suggest gusts, eddies, and an inevitable flow of energy from shape to shape and from dancer to dancer.

“Paul wanted the dancers to look as if they were moving underwater,” says former Clevelander Susan McGuire, who set the work on OCB.

Rounding out Ballet Unbound will be Heinz Poll’s “Adagio for Two Dancers” (1973). Set on OCB by répétiteur Jane Startzman and danced to composer Tomaso Albinoni’s “Adagio for Strings and Organ in G Minor,” the serene neoclassical pas de deux, with the dancers costumed in gold unitards, is meant to evoke the image of dancing under the light of a cathedral window and is noted for its sculptural lines, controlled movement, and demanding lifts. 

Ohio Contemporary Ballet presents Ballet Unbound at 7 p.m., Saturday, February 28, 2026, at the University of Akron’s EJ Thomas Hall, 198 Hill Street, Akron, Ohio. Tickets range from $15 to $65 and are available online at ticketmaster.com/event/05006350A5538960 or by phone at (330) 972-7570.

*Note: OCB will perform an alternate version of Ballet Unbound with another world premiere on March 28, 2026, at Playhouse Square’s Mimi Ohio Theatre.