review

Let's get the dubious honor portion of this dance review out of the way before digging into the unexpected delight that is Ballet Memphis' "The Wizard of Oz."

It's one thing when the professional dance company devotes a full evening to the works of Trey McIntyre, a choreographer with an international reputation. It's another thing, likely more to do with cost-cutting, when the company spotlights works by one of its own dancers, as it did Saturday at the Orpheum.

That's not to say 24-year-old Steven McMahon isn't a talent on the rise, and at his tender age he's proven adept at finding music -- usually classical -- that fits perfectly with the kind of dramatic choreographic style he's developing for himself.

Take his latest premiere, "Being Here With Other People," set to the familiar final movement of Beethoven's Violin Concerto. He makes sure what's happening in the music happens in the dance. Whenever the violin plays a delicate solo or a soaring cadenza, you can be sure a solo dancer will follow suit. Or that when the music rises up into a big, overflowing burst of happiness, the eight-person ensemble will similarly erupt from a crowd formation into an orange-pink bloom of joy, with arms, legs and smiles leading the way.

McMahon locates the emotional core of the music and then expresses it, even at times when there isn't much to express. His recent pas de deux "The Lovely Story of Us," created for dancers Julie Niekrasz and Scott Spivey to perform at a competition in Helsinki, plays out as a one-note snapshot of a young couple in love. The exactness of the two competitors -- er, dancers -- demonstrates the precision of their craft without probing the depths of it.

On Saturday, these two works preceded the revival of his beautifully rendered 2007 "Wizard of Oz" ballet, a surprisingly Modern piece. Indeed, it was impossible to look at the imperial bun on the head of the Wicked Witch of the West (danced by a reptilian Stephanie Mei Hom) and not think of Martha Graham exploring new avenues of psychology.

Even the minimal, unrealistic set by Robert Andrew Kovach and lighting by Andrew Meyers added to the expressionistic feel of the piece, and when Dorothy, the Tin Woodsman, the Scarecrow and the Lion all show up in the traditional costumes, it's almost as if the cast of the original film accidentally wandered onto a Fritz Lang movie set.

Using music by 20th Century British composers such as Holst and Britten, McMahon creates an entirely new universe for the great American fairy tale.

Though McMahon's abstract pieces still seem like the formal compositions of a student, his gifts for balletic storytelling are indeed top notch. We speculate that his future works will become even more sophisticated and well-conceived. And the next time Ballet Memphis devotes an entire evening to his work, no one will bring up how good his dance is for the company's budget.