BalletX presents a new Tiler Peck ballet and a program that is a timeline cleanse for the soul

BalletX performed throughout the early phases of the pandemic, one of the rare U.S. dance companies to do so. Early on, it scheduled an innovative digital season, and it had pop-up performances in parks and outdoor venues around Philadelphia.

It was also one of the first companies to tiptoe back into a large theater — outdoors at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts, where it is now the resident dance company.

But this week, it was time to return home, to the other theater where it is the resident dance company and has been for most of its 16 years: the Wilma Theater.

It was the troupe’s first time performing there since December 2019. And it was time for a party, the festive atmosphere we all so needed.

BalletX opened its summer season on Wednesday night with three mostly light, delicious, happy world premieres. But the company hasn’t left its digital lessons behind. A short film about the making of each piece preceded it, by resident filmmaker Elliot deBruyn.

Two of the pieces on the program came to be via BalletX’s frequent outings at the prestigious Vail Dance Festival. That was where the company first worked with Tiler Peck, a principal dancer with New York City Ballet and one of the most celebrated dancers working today. She is now also a choreographer.

Vail was also where BalletX met Jamar Roberts, resident choreographer of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Two of the pieces on the program share a theme. Roberts’ Honey and Spanish choreographer Gustavo Ramirez Sansano’s Love Parade are both about love.

Peck’s Umoja — the Swahili word for “unity” — was probably the biggest draw for most audience members, and it opens the program. Artistic director Christine Cox had given Peck a starting point: music of the same name by Valerie Coleman and played (on recording at the Wilma) by the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen.

Peck has been dancing all over Instagram for most of the pandemic, bringing ballet classes and snippets of joy to the masses for months. So her movement is well known, even to people who haven’t seen her dance live. Her style and joy easily translated to the BalletX dancers.

The piece opens with 10 dancers in a flower formation, blooming with the women in the center. From there, it never stops moving. At the beginning, the difficult turns, jumps, and speed threatened to overtake a few of the dancers, but they settled in as the piece went on.

Skyler Lubin, featured at both ends of the work, especially seemed to embrace her brush with greatness and looked like a superstar in her own right, particularly at the end.

(After this week, there will be two more chances to see Peck’s Umoja. BalletX will dance it to live music by the Philadelphia Orchestra on July 27 at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in New York. They will perform together again on Sept. 28 at the orchestra’s opening night concert at the Kimmel Center.)

If Peck’s piece is about community, Roberts’ Honey is about partnerships. Set to a piano score by Don Shirley, it has three couples exploring various phases of companionship. Ashley Simpson and Jared Kelly lean into the emotion, with deep plies, strong arms motions, and bodies fully committed into each movement. Francesca Forcella and Jonah Delgado mirror each other, as a couple who knows each other very well. Finally, Andrea Yorita dominates her relationship with Shawn Cusseaux until they land center stage in the sunset.

Roberts does not conform to ballet tradition of revisiting the whole cast of dancers before the curtain comes down — and it’s refreshing to see a different format.

Ramirez Sansano’s Love Parade is quirky, fun, and colorful, danced over a sea of flower petals to a medley of music by Bert Kaempfert, including “L.O.V.E.” and “Candlelight Cafe (Danke Schoen).” The aesthetic is a mix of an old-school game, a comic book, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. This piece explores new love, playful and joyful.

The costumes are candy colored, petals are stirred up and tossed into the sky, and love blooms between all sorts of couples. The dancers speak! They frolic. And they sing — some better than others.

It is light as a summer beach read and the timeline cleanse for the soul we all need right now.

The BalletX summer series is through Sunday at the Wilma Theater, 265 S. Broad St., $25-$70, 215-225-5389 x250, balletx.org.