BalletX

Wed.-Sat., July 23-26, 8 p.m. and Sun., July 27, 2 p.m.; "Celebrating Female Choreographers in Ballet" panel discussion, Thu., July 24, 4 p.m.; $20-$25, Wilma Theater, 265 S. Broad St., 215-546-7824, wilmatheater.org

by Janet Anderson

dance

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"What does it mean when most dancers are women and most choreographers are men?" asks BalletX's co-artistic director, Christine Cox. The company's season-ending All Female Choreographers Project, onstage at the Wilma, is intended to encourage that discussion.

This time around, Xers are bringing together three exceptional women choreographers. Netherlands-based Annabelle Lopez Ochoa created Still Life, in which dancers slip into and out of famous Baroque paintings they re-create. Helen Pickett started with San Francisco Ballet before moving to William Forsythe's Ballett Frankfurt. According to the press release, she explores "the multifaceted expression of union through deconstruction and rebuilding," which sounds like a philosophy thesis, but her new work, Union, promises to be juicy dance. Last but never least, BalletX's own Cox presents NumbRoads, a reworking of something originally made for the Pennsylvania Ballet's annual AIDS benefit Shut Up and Dance in 2001. Cox's dance for three, set to Portishead, is now a dance for six: The earlier version was about "finding a way out of the loneliness," Cox explains, but she wanted the sequel to be about "feeling complete as a solo individual."

Wed.-Sat., July 23-26, 8 p.m. and Sun., July 27, 2 p.m.; "Celebrating Female Choreographers in Ballet" panel discussion, Thu., July 24, 4 p.m.; $20-$25, Wilma Theater, 265 S. Broad St., 215-546-7824, wilmatheater.org.