For its first appearance — with three new works — at the Jewish Community Center Sept. 3-4, the Courage Group attracted a large, appreciative audience. It's easy to see why. Over his company's seven years of existence, Todd Courage has developed a choreographic language that is ballet-based but thoroughly contemporary in the way it tears — sometimes humorously, sometimes sarcastically — at ballet's edges. He loves its linearity, so he chooses from existing steps and combinations and then stirs them into a melting pot, where they become just one of the ingredients at his disposal.

Musically, he is equally selective. He patches his scores together like a quilter. You quickly learn to forget about context and go along for the ride. Some of the musical transitions may jar, but most of the time they develop something akin to an aural logic. I found myself amused by Bach and Handel playing hopscotch with each other.

The Joffrey Ballet performance Friday at the Civic Center of Greater Des Moines is about a world-class ballet company with a long attachment to Iowa. It's a story of Des Moines' growing love of dance. And it's very much about the floods of 2008 and their damage to the University of Iowa's Hancher Auditorium in Iowa City.

"It's really about neighbors helping neighbors," Hancher executive director Chuck Swanson said. "And it all started when (Civic Center chief executive) Jeff Chelesvig called me after the flood, in August, and asked what he could do to help."

Turjoman attended summer classes in New York for a few years and then took the plunge and moved to the East coast. “It takes a lot of courage to get out of Tucson, but you need the exposure to dance,” he told an interviewer in 1985. “You have to test the waters.” He was first accepted by the Joffrey School of Ballet and then by American Ballet’s school. Just like in baseball, he had to spend time in the minor league or ABT II, the American Ballet Theatre’s ‘farm team.’

Eventually, Turjoman moved up to the main company and was given occasional solos. The artistic director for ABT was the famed Russian dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov. Baryshnikov also performed with the company.

Two major choreographers will present premieres before the year is out. Alexei Ratmansky, artist in residence at American Ballet Theater, and two other choreographers offer new site-specific ballets at Avery Fisher Hall in the company's fall season (Oct. 7-10); and Paul Taylor's latest dance will open in Syracuse on Nov. 6.

Mr. Ratmansky has largely concentrated on modern Russian composers until now, so what's interesting here is that he is making a ballet to keyboard sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti. Mr. Taylor's new work is to Debussy's "Children's Corner."

Grand Rapids Ballet Company has hired Glenn DelVecchio, a former marketing director for Clear Channel Radio, as its managing director. DelVecchio began work Tuesday as the ballet troupe's first full-time managing director nearly seven years.

DelVecchio, 41, hopes to broaden the ballet's core audience in West Michigan. "We're out to show that we aren't art for art's sake," he said. "We're out to entertain you.”