A ballet company grows in St. Louis.

Gen Horiuchi's hands undulate like water wending its way around rocks as he describes his six years as artistic director of the Saint Louis Ballet. "I had to relearn myself," the soft-spoken former principal dancer of the New York City Ballet says when asked about the challenges of taking on directorship in 2000. Former artistic directors Ludmila Dokoudovsky and Antoni Zalewski had favored a classical repertoire in the slightly old-fashioned style of the Ballets Russes, and the company's school had dwindled to about 40 students. "First, I came here to run the company," says Horiuchi. "But then, what I realized was there's no ballet school here. Well, you have to have a school in order to have a company."

Gathering advice from experienced colleagues, Horiuchi recruited a qualified teaching staff. In 2001 he moved the school into three bright studios in Chesterfield, a prosperous suburb of St. Louis. Four years later, his school's enrollment has increased to over 300 and the studios hum with activity as girls in color-coded leotards and pulled-back hair scamper to classes. Horiuchi's greater ambition, however, is to build a company capable of performing classical and contemporary works, and to cultivate an audience willing to buy tickets for both.

This isn't an unreasonable goal in a town that supports an impressive art museum, an opera company, a nationally acclaimed symphony orchestra, and the Center of Creative Arts (COCA), a seven-studio community center offering jazz, ballet, tap, and West African dance. St. Louis regularly hosts a range of touring dance companies, but Horiuchi admits that exposing local audiences to new work will be a challenge. "They want the best of everything, but the taste is conservative."

With a businessman's acumen, tempered by the sensibilities of an artist, Horiuchi has adapted. As part of its first subscription series the company is presenting The Nutcracker and Swan Lake. But this month Horiuchi will also sandwich in an evening of contemporary work created by himself and emerging New York choreographer Jessica Lang. A similar experiment was launched last year. Horiuchi says, "The audience is still small, but it was successful."

Horiuchi's patience and gentle persistence may explain his success in St. Louis thus far. He chuckles when recalling how, when he first arrived in the city, many people didn't know about his achievements as a dancer. He was just "that Japanese kid from New York." But the modest approach worked, and local financial support for the company continues to grow. His ability to build the school into a thriving business while expanding the artistic horizons of the company suggest a talent for quietly effecting change in a community suspicious of outsiders.

In the next five years, Horiuchi hopes to expand his company from 19 to 25 dancers and to offer works by Balanchine and Robbins. He believes the city is ready to support its own ballet company and accept a wider variety of dance if the quality is good. Once again, the hands go into action as Horiuchi mimes a slow and steady uphill progression. "St. Louis is a good town ... we need to establish our own base ... and we'll get there."

Saint Louis Ballet performs March 3-4 at COCA, St. Louis. www.stlouisballet.org