Bodies sang and voices danced at the intimate Studio Theater on opening night of the Portland Ballet’s annual showcase of new works.

Billed as a collaboration, “Gallery: Composing Choreography,” presented three dance pieces inspired by musical selections from the Dirigo Ensemble, a new a cappella vocal group directed by Christopher Pelonzi. While dancers filled the stage, singers accompanied them, just out of view to the right of the audience.

Over weeks of intensive preparation, Jennifer Jones, Adam Miller and Nell Shipman created brief, 15- to 20-minute works that employed seven to eight company dancers each. Ranging from pure ballet to more modern dance approaches, the pieces, at their best, were both personally moving and technically impressive. The music, at times ethereal and at other times markedly assertive, revealed North American, European, African and Indian sources and included touches of hand and drum percussion.

Choreographer Jennifer Jones’ “Sonder” suggested spiritual connections through collective passages and sculpture-in-motion partnering. Accompanied by poetic vocal lines, dancers mixed moments en pointe with those in which they assumed modernist postures. Dancers Erica Diesl, Kelsey Harrison, Grace Koury, Milena Hartog, Kaitlyn Hayes, Russell Hewey, Daniel Rudenberg and J. Luke Tucker combined under shadow-filled lighting by Jamie Grant to leave a warm, lasting impression of this engaging piece.

Adam Miller’s “Bound Away” had a mid-20th century feel as dancer Eliana Trenam joined with Koury, Hartog, Hewey, Rudenberg and Tucker in segments supported by the traditional song “Shenandoah” as well as Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm.” Recalling how American folk and jazz influences served to broaden dance tastes, the work charmed. A final touch of Indian raga from the ensemble created a somewhat mystifying musical close to this spirited piece.

Company director Nell Shipman’s “Fish and Trees,” noted by her as autobiographical, created a sense of hard-won intimacy out of initially anxious, fidgety moves performed by Heather Baxter, Toni Martin, Diesl, Harrison, Hewey, Rudenberg, Trenam and Tucker. In casual exercise-type outfits by Amy Baxter, the group coalesced around some dazzling passages of partnering that were uplifting in more ways than one. A South African song from the Ensemble mellowed the close.

In a brief finale, the incredibly hard-working dancers surrounded the equally energized singers onstage to celebrate their extraordinary collaboration.

Steve Feeney is a freelance writer who lives in Portland.

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