PROVIDENCE - A bird gave flight to a dance program last weekend.

Festival Ballet Providence presented its Up Close on Hope show, which continues through the month. It’s 90 minutes and eight works, a few of which are exceptional. "Dying Swan" is certainly among them.

While the piece is relatively short and simple, it’s artistically and masterfully presented by its soloist, Vilia Putrius. She wears a white tutu fringed with feathers. She looks and, more impressively, acts like a swan. Her arms undulate, open and close, and seem like wings, which she flaps for a time as though fighting off the throes of death.

Putrius, performing the choreography of Milica Bijelic, Festival’s ballet mistress, fashioned after that of the late Mikhail Fokine. She conveys the creature and its demise, in body and expression, which is sometimes somber, sometimes pained. It’s a promising sign for Festival’s next show in April: Swan Lake.

As usual, the Up Close show features a diverse offering of dance. It’s not unusual is to see a piece in the program by choreographer Viktor Plotnikov. However, this program presents two pieces, both distinctly Plotnikov: unorthodox, yet engaging.

"Elegant Souls," which Festival presented three years ago, is on the program. It’s a large and elaborate work involving six dancers and several movements, which seem quirky. Male dancers sway female dancers between their arms like pendulums. Female dancers use their hands to comically lift and turn each other’s heads. And one dancer walks up another’s back.

The dancers all wear black: shorts and long-sleeved mesh tops. The music is classic: Bach, Tchaikovsky and Brahms, among others. And the movements are classic Plotnikov, unusual but beautiful and, surprisingly, completely in keeping with the score.

This, too, is the case with "2," Plotnikov’s other piece in the program, which is shorter and simpler, involving just two dancers, dressed in black shorts and T-shirts: Leticia Guerrero and Alexander Akulov. At first there’s no music, just unusual sounds, composed by Yello, which eventually gives way to a driving African drum beat and dance with a funky quality.

The program presents three premieres. The best of the bunch is "Lo Que Pasa en la Media Noche," choreographed by Gianni Di Marco. It’s a romantic and tragic duet. Jennifer Ricci, in a beige dress, and Eivar Martinez in black pants and shirt, dance with intensity to the strong, almost overly dramatic Spanish music of Astor Piazzolla. Their relationship seems emotionally conflicted. Ricci sometimes walks away from Martinez, then returns to him for fluid partnering.

Also premiering is "Last Dance," choreographed by Avichai Scher, which involves emotionally varied music and movements, mournful to playful. But a program note dedicating the dance to a recently departed friend gives weight to the former, as does the ending, with one of the eight dancers, Ashley Andries, slumping to the floor.

"Southern Comfort," choreographed by Mark Harootian, a Festival dancer, presents the music of Dolly Parton and Patsy Cline and four couples in a kind of show-and-tell of four types of love: inattentive, young, deceitful and cruel.

"Glass House," choreographed by Colleen Cavanaugh and excerpted from a larger work, features Lauren Menger and Davide Vittorino, both in shiny print tights, he with no shirt, her with a black sports bra, dancing to the music of Ani DiFranco, which is a little edgy and discontented, as is their dance, which suggests low-level angst. The music, which talks about "life just keeps getting harder," and the movements go well together, right to end, with Vittorino holding Menger up at a diagonal, her legs split, as they turn and turn to a held note.

For pure classical ballet, the program includes the grande pas de deux from Don Quixote, performed by Erica Chipp and Eivar Martinez. It’s a showcase of skills more than artistry. Chipp playfully prances en point and performs several foute turns (kicking pirouettes). And Martinez encircles the stage in a series of leaping turns, and he, too, performs pirouettes, nine in a row without bringing his free foot to the floor.

Up Close on Hope continues March 15, 22 and 29 at 7:30 p.m., and March 16 at 6 p.m. Festival Ballet is located at 825 Hope St., Providence. Tickets are $40, which includes wine and hors d’oeuvres at intermission. Tickets are $40, which includes wine and hors d’oeuvres at intermission. Call (401) 3553-1129. E-mail www.festivalballet.com or visit www.festivalballet.com

brourke@projo.com

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