The Miami City Ballet gave the region a taste -- an hors d'oeuvre, artistic director Edward Villella called it -- of the company's version of classical ballet in a program dedicated to the Swing Era. It seemed a hybrid of classical ballet and modern dance that was occasionally jarring and often gorgeous.

About 850 people, including many children, attended the performance at Academic Auditorium Thursday night. The 15 members of the troupe performed without the sets and costumes that will be present when the ballet regroups tonight for a performance at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis.

Acknowledging that many people in the audience may have had limited exposure to ballet, Villella began by conducting a mini-clinic in ballet vocabulary, an introduction if you will.

"A lot of people who see ballet the first time only see it the first time," he said.

He said ballet is no longer the festival of romantic poses it once was. Classics like "Swan Lake" are not as relevant as they once were here at the end of the 20th century, he said. "We dance differently."

The athletic, aggressive difference was obvious once the dancing began with excepts from a piece called "The Big Band Supermegatroid." Two dancers partnered elegantly to "Moonlight Serenade" in a dance that could have been found in a Hollywood movie of the day.

That was followed by a raucous dance between a gangster and his moll.

The company's marriage of classical ballet postures and modern dance perhaps worked least well in the hands of modern dance choreographer Paul Taylor. "Company B," set to music by the Andrews Sisters, was at times melancholy and playfully sensuous. An audience favorite was the Latin-flavored "Rum and Coke" featuring Amanda Hankes shimmying throughout.

But asking the classically trained ballet dancers to emote express themselves in the heartbroken tune "There Will Never Be Another You" seemed to be asking too much.

Villella introduced the final piece, "Who Cares?," as an example of the best contemporary ballet, and who could argue? George Balanchine's choreography, George Gershwin's music, and the Miami City Ballet's athletic dancers were a potent combination.

It provided the high points of the evening: a remarkably nimble solo by Jennifer Kronenberg to Gershwin's "Fascinating Rhythm," and the graceful Kronenberg teamed with Franklin Gamero on "Embraceable You."

Dr. Marc Strauss, director of the Southeast dance program, deserves a hand for exposing so many people to an art form rarely seen here on a professional level. Eventually the audience will learn to stay seated not only between numbers but especially during them.

It was an introduction.