In the five years they danced, Phrenic New Ballet covered a lot of ground on and off pointe as a troupe of classically trained dancers making contemporary work. Last summer, the company disbanded for reasons that, in fact, had more to do with artistic success than failure. Now it may end up being the prologue to two emerging companies, BalletX and Miro Dance Theatre, both making their debuts at the Live Arts Festival.

At Phrenic's inception, co-founders Christine Cox, Amanda Miller and Matthew Neenan were also members of the Pennsylvania Ballet (PAB). The fourth founder was filmmaker Tobin Rothlein, who brought multimedia elements to the mix. The directors' vision was to build a strong ensemble as exponents of ballet that would integrate their classical training as a point of departure for any dance style.

It worked. Phrenic quickly built a following, luring great guest choreographers and dancers, touring abroad and getting invited to the prestigious Jacob's Pillow dance festival in Massachusetts.

So why pull the plug? Money? Like most companies large and small, that was a problem. Creative differences between the artistic directors? Certainly — what else is new? Finally, by last summer, the artistic directors were on different creative paths and Phrenic's nerve center was a little frayed.

It was time for something else.

Cox and Neenan partnered again as choreographers and unofficially previewed BalletX last March at the Arts Bank in a joint onstage concert with Network for New Music. By July they were in rehearsals for their debut at Live Arts, a work that was sneak-previewed in front of company board members, press and Roy Kaiser, their boss at PAB.

Neenan and British choreographer David Fielding choreographed the first program, 2Different. Fielding has created many ballets for companies throughout Europe, including several for the National Ballet of Portugal, and choreographer Christopher Wheeldon (who has worked with Neenan and Cox in PAB's successful Swan Lake) recommended him as good fit. Cox told Fielding they wanted to work with him when Phrenic was on tour. "He moves classical dancers really well onstage," Cox said. "He wanted it to be really light. Like summer. Like friends dancing next to each other, having fun. Sometimes when you perform contemporary movement, you get this seriousness."

Neenan and Cox, still dancers with PAB, recruited several fellow members from that company for their own. In August they prepared for their performances of Swan Lake at the Edinburgh International Festival, after which they performed as BalletX informally on Edinburgh's open festival stage.

During a rehearsal break, Cox acknowledges that Phrenic "got too big. [It] grew beyond any expectations and that was the beautiful thing about it." Neenan said that by the fifth year "we knew it eventually wasn't going to work for us. Now I think both emerging companies have a really great root. It gives us the confidence to start something different."

They began planning BalletX as soon as Phrenic disbanded. Cox admits she had reservations. "I thought, "Oh, god, can I do this again?' But we needed simplicity and we work so well together, so it co-inspired, one ended and one began."

Neenan says their focus is going to be on bringing in "really good contemporary ballet choreographers." Cox wants her company to expand the parameters of ballet. "There is no full-time contemporary ballet company in Philadelphia," she says. "For ballet to keep moving into this century, it has got to cultivate the choreographers and dancers. They can't keep doing Swan Lake. I mean I love that we're doing that, but there's a lot of room for other expression in ballet."

"With BalletX it's more personalized," she continues. "It's evident that you as an individual artist have something to say and it gives you a chance to grow and take risks."

"Especially since we don't have multimedia anymore," adds Neenan, "so we have to come up with fresh ideas with an different edge."

Miro Images: Miro Dance Theatre's Tobin Rothlein and Amanda Miller want visual elements to be as important to their work as choreography. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Amanda Miller and Tobin Rothlein are a married couple as well as artistic collaborators. After Phrenic they went on an artists retreat in Europe to hang out with other performing and visual artists. When they got back to the States, they immediately decided to launch their own company.

So far, realizing their joint vision for a company hasn't overwhelmed this couple. "I'm working with the dancers in a dramaturgical way," Rothlein says. "It goes right down to how we structure rehearsals, how we spend time with the dancers and choreographers. … They are working with me like we were doing an installation at an art gallery. They are part of a visual picture that involves performance. It is not something that is addressed just in tech week. It's a whole artistic process."

Miller and Rothlein are taking the first steps to nurture that process with an ambitious work called Hurdy Gurdy, a hallucinogenic ballet inspired by the letters and dreams of composer Gustav Mahler. Contemporary composer and Philly native Uri Caine adapted and arranged Mahler's music for the production. Hurdy was started as part of a National Endowment of the Arts-funded project for Phrenic. Miller and Rothlein have been researching and developing it on and off for a few years, and felt it would be an ideal piece to introduce Miro.

Miller left PAB three years ago and had trained in modern, cultural and character dance as well as ballet. Her choreographic style typically has comic elements, characterizations and movement idioms that can be antithetical to ballet vocabulary.

"The visual art will be on an equal level to the dance," says Rothlein during rehearsal. "We will further challenge ourselves choreographically and the way we approach ballet. Reaching out to a visual arts audience, going further with both."

Rothlein also talked about the work while on a trolley press tour of Live Arts venues a few weeks ago. Hurdy Gurdy is being staged in a theater perfect for it — the dusty Plays & Players Theater. "We wanted to do it in that theater because it was designed in Mahler's time and visually ties right in to what we're doing. We're treating it like a site-specific space," he said.

The couple auditioned for Miro in New York, looking for diverse dancers who have performed at both ends of the choreographic spectrum. Miller and choreographers Jessica Lang, who worked with Phrenic, and the Berlin-based Johannes Wieland, each created a section of the three-part Hurdy Gurdy.

"Working with three choreographers within the same story is tricky," says Rothlein. "In dance, choreographers are used to being the all and everything. It says a lot about the choreographers that they are willing to collaborate in this way."

BalletX's 2Different, Sept. 7-10, 7:30 p.m. (with post-show discussion on Sept. 8); Sept. 11, 2 p.m.; $20, Arts Bank, Broad and South sts., 60 min. Miro Dance Theatre's Hurdy Gurdy, Sept. 7-10, 9 p.m. (with post-show discussion on Sept. 7), $20, Plays & Players Theatre, 1714 Delancey St., 50 min.