It wasn't an assignment he would have chosen for himself. Steven McMahon, Ballet Memphis dancer, got word from his boss that his first big-time ballet as a choreographer would be "the great American fairy tale."

The young Scotsman wondered if she'd made a mistake.

He? Choreograph "The Wizard of Oz"?

"I thought: 'Really? You really want me to do this?' I'm not sure I can pin it down," McMahon said. "How could I do this? Everyone has seen the movie. Do I do the movie version? Or do I go back to the old books and put on a version that nobody would be familiar with?"

When his ballet adaptation of "The Wizard of Oz" debuted in 2007, it helped establish McMahon as the company's go-to guy for in-house choreography. He wasn't just a risk taker (and certainly performing the classic American story to a recorded soundtrack of British classical composers such as Holst, Britten and Vaughan Williams over anything resembling Harold Arlen's "Over the Rainbow" was just asking for audiences to hate it). He also turned out to be a decent storyteller.

"I'd go out on a limb and say he's the best storyteller I've used," said the company's artistic director Dorothy Gunther Pugh. "Steven takes the classical vocabulary and spins it in new ways."

Since his success with "Wizard of Oz," McMahon has been a prolific contributor to the company's repertoire. During his six seasons, in which he has also danced a number of meaty roles, he's created 17 new works -- more than enough movement to fill several full evenings of shows dedicated to his choreography.

But this weekend's Ballet Memphis performance focuses on three of them.

McMahon has reworked "The Wizard of Oz" for its revival at the Orpheum. The company has also put more money and resources into the production, which had a comparatively austere debut at the Germantown Performing Arts Centre.

He will also premiere a short pas de deux called "The Lovely Story of Us," which he created for two of his fellow dancers to perform last summer at the International Ballet Competition in Helsinki.

The final work is a new piece, "Being Here With Other People," set to an excerpt from Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D.

"I was watching the movie 'Amelie' and there's a scene where she likes to turn around in movie theaters and stare at people's faces in the dark because they all look so happy," he said. "I wanted something that just makes people feel joy. The dancers definitely look like they're having fun."

Though only 24, the 6-feet-4 redhead from Glasgow began his training in the European classical tradition. He left home at age 16 to study at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, where he soaked up everything from classical ballet to West African dance.

He still feels most comfortable, he says, creating dances to classical music.

"Some people are really good at making popular music seem lyrical," he said. "But classical music is the music of my life. I feel it in my soul."

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Ballet Memphis' "Wizard of Oz"

At 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Orpheum theater, 203 S. Main. Tickets are from $5 to $70. Call 737-7322.

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