Friday's review of James Sewell Ballet had the incorrect title and location.

It should have read that James Sewell Ballet performed at the City Hall Theatre on March 20 at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.

`A Month of Sundays'' Triangle Theatre Company at the Princess Hotel It's really unfortunate that so many people equate ballet with rigid, traditional styles of movement -- because last night's performance by James Sewell Ballet was anything but humdrum.

I genuinely enjoyed what I found to be a technically excellent and creatively innovative performance enough to consider going to the second programme tonight.

The show started off with their performance of "Winter'', quite an airy and whimsical piece, with the silver-and-turquoise-costumed dancers posing as pixies shivering in the cold.

This portion of the show was very light and unexpectedly humorous, with the dancers sliding on imaginary ice and throwing silk-scarfed snowballs like gleeful children, leaving the audience to oooh and ahhh as a burst of faux snowflakes fell from the ceiling.

Having read a bit about Mr. Sewell's penchant for combining traditional ballet with magic tricks and illusions, I was quite looking forward to the piece entitled "Prestigitations: Rings''.

Set to Scott Joplin's ragtime tunes, the ballet is based on one the oldest known magic tricks of the Chinese Linking Rings.

Benjamin Johnson was a good selection for this performance, since his impish grin and personality added a bit of kick to what was probably one of the weaker parts of the show.

Although I really wanted to see the companion piece "Prestigitations: Jacket'' where the dancer escapes from a straitjacket while dancing a classical solo (apparently one of his most popular works), it seems I'll have to go back tonight or Saturday afternoon to catch that one. Oh well.

The next piece, a wedding pas de deux from "Don Quixote'', was a fairly traditional piece with wonderful costumes and quite a dramatic flair.

The female part of the duet, Erina Noda, was particularly good -- the lines of her shoulders and neck were held at strikingly graceful angles, which really added to the overall beauty of the piece. Her male counterpart, John Deserio, was good, but seemed slightly unsteady on his feet during particularly rapid turns.

"The Yin in Yang'', a solo piece choreographed by Mr. Sewell exploring the concept of duality in nature, chaos and order, was the most innovative and contemporary work in the show.

Music and lighting were particularly important in emphasising the polar oppositions in this work -- at one point, it sounded like the "Dr. Who'' theme song was being mixed with New Age-style Earth music.

Mr. Sewell himself performed this ballet, and his movements -- symbolising binary opposition -- flashed between flatfooted, rigid, robotic movements and fluid, flexible, elegant dance.

The contrasting music, movements, and background lighting switch at shorter and shorter intervals until they become indistinguishable from each other, and Mr. Sewell begins to dance happily in celebration of his integrated parts.

This piece walked a thin line between being fabulous and downright weird, but it's definitely one of the more memorable moments in the show.

The "Mendelssohn Trio'' was chosen as the finale piece, and with good reason -- it combined the best elements of traditional and modern ballet with wonderful results.

The strength of this piece rested in the ability of the dancers, clad in semi-nude body stockings with splashes of magenta and tur quoise, to make relatively simple movements appear extraordinary through their execution.

What I loved best about this show was a heightened awareness on my part about how mucmusic, most particularly in "Winter'' and the "Molto Allegro Ed Agitato'' section of the "Mendelssohn Trio''.

This was a great show, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow night's performance.

Kim Dismont Robinson Ballet cation: Performers in the James Sewell Ballet will give tow more performances combining modern and traditional dance -- and incorporating a little magic as well.