Nell Shipman’s magnificent “The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace” is intelligent, beautiful and deeply spiritual.

First choreographed and performed in 2013, “The Armed Man” was reprised Friday and Saturday in three performances by the Portland Ballet Company at Portland High School’s John Ford Theater.

The music, by Kurt Jenkins, was dedicated to Kosovo victims, but its theme – especially as embodied by Shipman’s choreography – is universal, not bound by a single event’s storyline.

The piece’s dozen sections span musical styles from medieval to modern, with choral passages based on both religious texts and war-inspired poetry. What binds it all together is the arc of a soldier’s struggle before, during and after facing the gut-wrenching reality of battle.

In Shipman’s composition, the Soldier in Body (Wyatt Barr) is accompanied by Life (Jennifer Jones), Death (Erica Diesl) and Conscience (Morgan Brown Sanborn) as he journeys into and through battle, and then by Soldier in Spirit (Joseph Jefferies) when the battle is done.

The identified characters, and the flow of music and choreography, are supported by a corps of female dancers (Amelia Bielen, Colleen Edwards, Deborah Grammatic, Kelsey Harrison, Kaitlyn Hayes, Meghan McCoy Seedner, Annie Moore, Kaleigh Natale and Eliana Trenam).

Shipman’s choreography is remarkably textured. Themes and formations are echoed among passages, and the movement interweaves classical and contemporary steps and shapes.

Sometimes the steps pick up primary rhythms; at other times they roll smoothly across fast tempos or pick out vigorous beats from lyrical passages. In group sections, dancers make inevitable-seeming transitions between counterpoint and unison, including formations with militaristic evocation.

The female dancers wear tan dance dresses with slashes across them to suggest wounds. The long skirts enhance sweeping movement, and in one repeated phrase the dancers bunch them in an expression of mourning.

Shipman has mostly avoided overly literal interpretations, but now and then clear imagery punctuates the dancing, keeping the soldier’s story in the fore.

Soldier in Body partners both Life and Death, but while his movement with Life includes breezy lifts and gentle, mutual embraces, Death clings to him in unreciprocated attachments.

When the soldier is struck down, the female dancers surround him closely, hunched over with small, jerking pulses and outstretched limbs; it is an image of still-warm carnage.

At Saturday’s matinee, the Portland Ballet dancers were nearly perfect in their expression of the piece. Fast footwork on pointe and fluid extensions were equally well executed, and every dancer was on board with the choreography’s stylistic and emotional demands.

Diesl gave Death sternness without ugliness; her movements were strong and expressive but with a matter-of-fact quality in Death’s more violent suggestions that increased the pathos without overdramatizing.

As Life, Jones portrayed lightness throughout, with gorgeous extensions, turns and lifts. Her change of expression from the struggle with Death to a joyous pas de deux with Soldier in Spirit was brilliantly subtle, shown in eyes that went from neutral to lit, an emerging slight smile and a lightening of her shoulder carriage.

Soldier in Spirit appears after the battle. First, Spirit dances a somber solo while Body lies still. Then, Spirit and Body perform a reconciling duet with lifts that alternately push away and cling.

Spirit’s duet with Life follows, filled with classical lifts and turns. Jefferies and Jones are practiced partners, and their fluency allowed for a technically demanding passage to come across as pure expression.

“The Armed Man” is drawn with a gentle but clear hand. Its messages about interior and interpersonal conflict are purposeful without a trace of polarizing or preaching heavy-handedness. The takeaway effect is enlightening and, dare it be said, healing.

Shipman’s choreography is equally sophisticated and accessible. Dance enthusiasts can trace her movement vocabulary and the nuanced sentences she has created with it. But the artistry stands on its own, able to envelop and move a viewer with no knowledge of, or even inclination toward, ballet.

“The Armed Man” was prefaced by spoken testimonies about the impact of war, presented by The Telling Room. Speakers, most originally from Iraq, varied among the three performances and included teens as well as older adults. One speaker was accompanied by an emotional cello solo performed by Robin Jellis.

Jennifer Brewer is a Portland-based freelance writer.