Deep in the Heart of Dixie: New South meets neo-classicism at North Carolina Dance Theatre.

A dozen high-stepping, dress-swooshing dancers cover he stage. Feet pluck and brash at the floor in time with banjo picking bluegrass music. A quick turn and the male dancers in the group ascend into soaring split jumps while their female counterparts launch into high-arm pirouettes. In Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux's thigh-slapping ballet Shindig (2004), the South rises again--hoedown-style. It is one of four southern-themed dance works on North Carolina Dance Theatre's "Under Southern Skies" tour, taking flight in March and April.

Part of the Charlotte-based company's 35th anniversary season--and 10th under Bonnefoux and wife Patricia McBride--the tour celebrates the rich culture of the South. It also continues a touring legacy that began shortly after the company's founding in 1970 by Robert Lindgren at the North Carolina School of the Arts. Throughout its history touring has been a staple for NCDT, and in 1982 the company was named the highest rated touring company in the U. S. by the National Endowment for the Arts. That legacy, as well as a commitment to a diverse repertoire, has been a hallmark of the 18-member contemporary ballet company ever since Bonnefoux took over as director in 1996. Bonnefoux has bolstered the company's repertoire with master works by Balanchine, Ailey, and Taylor as well those of contemporary giants William Forsythe, Nacho Duato, and Alonzo King.

This mix has attracted a corps of highly skilled and fearless dancers along with a legion of loyal patrons.

"I like the way our dancers look," says McBride, a former New York City Ballet star. "Mr. Balanchine used to say his dancers were like a mixed bouquet of flowers, they are all beautiful and all different. The same could be said about our dancers. They are all their own persons and not carbon copies of anyone else."

Bonnefoux and McBride encourage versatility and individuality. "This not only gives the company its look," says eight-year company veteran Traci Gilchrest. "It allows for more risk-taking in choosing the works we perform."

"They are sophisticated and generous dancers," says Alonzo King, who has created a number of works for the company including 2005's SALT.

Orchestrating this close-knit ensemble of dancers, Bonnefoux, McBride, and longtime company repetiteur Jerri Kumery have brought a wealth of dance experience and clout to the organization. A mentor and coach, McBride is always there for the dancers, says Gilchrest. "If you need help with a classical role, chances are Patricia has done it and she is always willing to help and never gives up on you."

"I love working with the dancers on the Balanchine repertory," says McBride. "I try to be true to the way I remember Mr. Balanchine showing me and pass on what I feel he would have wanted."

In 2005's staging of Balanchine's Serenade for instance, McBride relayed to Gilchrest and NCDT's female corps how Balanchine "wanted really soft pointe shoes, almost like ballet slippers, with no clunking sounds. He emphasized having lightening quick speed and a freedom in the torso and upper body. He wanted his dancers to fully use everything to the ends of their fingertips," says McBride.

Over the past decade Balanchine's works, from Agon to Western Symphony, have been an integral part of NCDT's repertoire. "I am proud of the way our dancers perform the Balanchine ballets," says McBride. "They always seek the troth in them."

The company is currently riding high after a successful showing at New York's Joyce Theater in 2004, a recent move to a newer and larger facility, and sold-out performances at home in Charlotte.

But things weren't always so rosy, recalls Kumery. "They were called 'the orphans' when they first showed up on the city's doorstep in 1990," she said. The then artistic director Salvatore Aiello had moved the company from Winston-Salem to Charlotte only to find an arts community in financial turmoil. Within a year of the move, says Kumery, "The company was broke and was forced to shut down for 15 months." Bonnefoux also recalls a few rough patches when he first took over from Aiello, needing to rescue it from folding, and then again after 9/11.

"Sal was fond of saying that 'The arts are the cherry on top ... they are the last to be put on and the first to be taken off,'" says Kumery. "It is great to think what we do is going to enliven and entertain folks, but people's basic needs always come first. When times are tough, like after this current wave of natural disasters, we need to find other ways to survive." For NCDT, their survival has meant a return to touring.

"In America you really need to find a theme for touring," says Bonnefoux. Bonnefoux says he found the theme for the "Under Southern Skies" tour by looking at what was going on in his own backyard. The idea for the tour got its start with Bonnefoux's desire to make a ballet using North Carolina's bluegrass music. In 2003, he was introduced to the music of Asheville, North Carolina, acoustic band The Greasy Beans.

His collaboration with the band produced the ballet Shindig. That same year Bonnefoux founded the company's Heritage Project, an initiative to educate the public about, and create dance works based on, southern themes.

With the warmly received performances of Shindig and other works from the Heritage Project at home, developing a southern-themed tour seemed a natural, according to executive director Doug Singleton, and one that instantly "caught the eye of presenters." Along with Shindig, the tour will also include former NCDT dancer Uri Sands' ballet Sweet Tea (2004).

Set to the music of North Carolina-born jazz great John Coltrane, Sweet Tea (iced tea with heaps of sugar) grew out of "watching folks deal with the south's summer heat," says Sands. A loose-hipped, jazzy work with a style as slick as Coltrane's music, Sands' nine-minute trio for two women and a man is a sepia colored daydream. Oversized hats, fans, and a hazy atmosphere give the impression of an oppressive summer day in the South.

Dancing in the work is first-year company member Justin Van Weest, who says he has fond memories of drinking sweet tea growing up in Mebane, North Carolina, a small town outside of Durham. "With this tour," says Weest, "I think southern audiences will be able to connect to its theme and to music they already enjoy."

Rounding out the tour's offerings will be Bonnefoux's I'm With You (2004), a swirling pas de deux inspired by and set to the music of another Asheville-based musician, folk singer Christine Kane. Not only are three of her songs, including the soul-piercing "Overjoyed," used in Bonnefoux's ballet about two people coming together, but she, along with The Greasy Beans, will play them live on the tour.

With operating expenses of over $50,000 per week of the tour, "We will be just looking to break even," says Singleton. The main reason for touring is not necessarily to make money, says Bonnefoux, but to provide the company's dancers with more opportunities to perform and grow as artists. "You want to offer audiences things they haven't seen before," he says. "But often then, you forget about what is going on right around you and the talent that is out there. Being a part of the South, we owe it to the region to discover what is specific to the area and make it a part of our company."

Bonnefoux and NCDT are doing just that with the "Under Southern Skies" tour, while still maintaining the company's penchant for a diverse repertoire.

After celebrating southern heritage on tour in Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, the company returns to Charlotte May 4-6 with a program of classical works by Ailey, Balanchine, and Robbins. Bonnefoux says he does not know what the next 35 years will bring for NCDT, but that he has one clear goal--"to be the best mid-sized dance company in America."

(For tour dates, see www.ncdance.org.)

Steve Sucato is an Erie, PA-based dancer-turned-writer.