On Your Feet
“The Kaplan New Works Series”
Cincinnati Ballet
Sept. 18 to 26, 2026
Jarson-Kaplan Theater
Aronoff Center for the Arts
What happens when a painting becomes movement? When a graphite drawing becomes a gesture? When ideas first explored in a Cincinnati gallery make their way onto a ballet stage? That creative exchange is at the heart of Cincinnati Ballet’s “Kaplan New Works Series,” opening Sept. 18 at the intimate Jarson-Kaplan Theater at the Aronoff Center for the Arts.
The annual series has long been Cincinnati Ballet’s laboratory for contemporary dance, but the 2026 edition pushes the idea of collaboration in a new direction. Four internationally recognized choreographers, Robert Bondara, Anne Jung, Mthuthuzeli November and Melody Mennite, are creating new works for the company. Two of them are drawing inspiration directly from Cincinnati artists Gee Horton and Michael Stillion.
It creates an unusual cultural conversation: international choreographers, Cincinnati Ballet dancers and visual artists rooted in this community interpreting ideas across different mediums.
Four Choreographers, Four Perspectives
The international credentials are considerable.
Robert Bondara comes to Cincinnati from Poland. A dancer, choreographer, director and educator, Bondara spent years with the Polish National Ballet and became ballet director of the Poznań Opera Ballet in 2018. His training is unusually broad for a choreographer, spanning ballet, economics and music.
Anne Jung brings an entirely different movement vocabulary. Before becoming a professional dancer, the German artist was an elite rhythmic gymnast who competed with the German national team at the European Championships, World Championships and Olympic Games. She later trained in dance in Cologne and joined Nederlands Dans Theater I in 2014, performing works by some of contemporary dance's most influential choreographers, including Jiří Kylián, Crystal Pite and Mats Ek. She later danced with Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company before establishing herself as a freelance choreographer and dancer.
Then there is Mthuthuzeli November, whose journey began far from a traditional ballet academy.
Born in Cape Town, South Africa, November started dancing at 15 through the outreach program Dance For All. His career has since taken him around the world, creating work for companies including The Royal Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet, Washington Ballet, Dutch National Ballet and Charlotte Ballet, where he was appointed resident choreographer in 2025. His INGOMA for Ballet Black earned a Laurence Olivier Award, and he has even choreographed and performed with Stormzy at the Glastonbury Festival. November has described his choreographic language as a meeting of ballet, modern dance and the African dance traditions he knew growing up, often using that vocabulary to tell stories that have historically been overlooked.
Melody Mennite spent 22 seasons with Houston Ballet, rising to principal dancer and performing leading roles in classical ballets as well as works by George Balanchine, William Forsythe, Twyla Tharp, Christopher Wheeldon, Justin Peck and others. Her second career as a choreographer has already produced more than a dozen commissioned works for organizations including Houston Ballet, Kansas City Ballet and Ballet Arkansas.
But in Cincinnati, Mennite and November have been given something particularly interesting to work with: Cincinnati itself.
Gee Horton, Interpreted Through Dance
November’s new ballet is inspired by the work of Cincinnati-based artist Gee Horton, whose exhibition “Chapter 4: In Another Lifetime” recently filled two galleries at the Contemporary Arts Center.
Horton has emerged as one of Cincinnati’s distinctive contemporary artistic voices. His work combines large-scale photorealist drawing, photography, collage, video and installation to examine Black masculinity, childhood, memory, vulnerability and generational inheritance.
“In Another Lifetime” tells a loosely autobiographical story through the character Freeman Little, using dreams and symbolic imagery to explore how history and trauma can move across generations.
That gives November rich material for dance.
The pairing is especially compelling because the two artists approach some of the same questions from different places. Horton explores identity, memory and Black masculinity through visual storytelling. November frequently uses movement to explore identity, heritage and stories that have gone untold.
For New Works, those worlds meet onstage.
Color becomes movement. Still images become bodies in motion. A story that existed on the walls of the CAC receives another interpretation through Cincinnati Ballet's dancers.
Michael Stillion's Art Starts Moving
Mennite’s Cincinnati connection begins with Michael Stillion and his CAC exhibition, “And then it was flowers.”
The Cincinnati-based artist and Miami University associate teaching professor works across painting, drawing, ceramics and animation. His CAC exhibition included approximately 50 works, including pieces reaching 16 feet by 10 feet.
Stillion's work examines the human condition and the passage of time. In “And then it was flowers,” vessels take on human characteristics while paintings, works on paper, sculpture and animation explore change that can happen so gradually that it is almost invisible while it is occurring.
Now Mennite gets to translate those ideas into bodies moving through space.
The connection between the two art forms is not literal. The ballet isn’t intended to reproduce a Stillion painting onstage. Instead, his visual language becomes a creative starting point for another artist working in an entirely different medium.
That is what makes this year’s “New Works” particularly intriguing.
A Cincinnati Arts Ecosystem on One Stage
Cincinnati has major arts institutions within blocks of one another downtown, but New Works demonstrates what can happen when those institutions and artists don't simply coexist. They collaborate.
Earlier this summer, the Contemporary Arts Center brought Horton and Stillion together with November and Mennite for a public discussion about how “Chapter 4: In Another Lifetime” and “And then it was flowers” could be transformed into original ballets.
Now audiences get to see the result.
Bondara brings Poland. Jung brings Germany and the influence of European contemporary dance. November brings South Africa and an international career built around a deeply personal movement language. Mennite brings more than two decades of experience on one of America’s major ballet stages.
And Cincinnati brings Horton and Stillion.
That may ultimately be the most interesting idea behind the 2026 “Kaplan New Works Series,” that Cincinnati isn’t simply hosting internationally recognized artists, Cincinnati artists are helping inspire what those international artists create next.