Full spectrum Festival Ballet runs the gamut in Up CLOSE, On HOPE BY JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ

Where else can you see a dog run onstage, hear the rip in a dancer’s costume, and notice the paleness on the face of a young dancer who’s too ill to perform in more than a cursory role? At Up CLOSE, On HOPE, Festival Ballet’s successful choreographic workshop series, concluding its first season this weekend (Saturday and Sunday, March 27 and 28).

In addition to the above-mentioned vagaries of fate, Up CLOSE lets you in on the collaborative nature of any production: artistic director Misha Djuric runs the lights and ballet mistress Milica Bijelic does sound; last Saturday, choreographer Piotr Ostaltsov jumped into his own piece to fill in for the ailing dancer; choreographer Colleen Cavanaugh brought in live music by way of her friend and fellow physician, mezzo-soprano Cheryl Brodsky and piano accompanist Laska Meseck. And, as Djuric has often pointed out, the studio space is so intimate that you see the sweat and hear the breathing of the dancers.

The evening began with the "Rose Adagio" of SleepingBeauty, set to Tchaikovsky’s score, a ballet not often performed because of its strenuous demands on the dancers but which Festival will present at the end of April. In the title role, Karla Kovatch demonstrated both confidence and polished technique in this excerpt.

The contrast couldn’t have been starker for the next piece, set to Bobby McFerrin’s boppy rendition of the American folk song "Hush Little Baby." Djuric mentioned in his introduction that Hush is one of the first pieces in which he incorporated elements of Balkan folk dance, the genre on which he cut his own dance teeth. Gleb Lyamenkoff and Caitlyn Novero are terrific in this comic piece, with heads wagging, triple-time stepping and, sure enough, some fleet footwork, with arms swinging together and overhead, a la folk dance routines.

Next up was a premiere of James Brown’s Red Ball, to Vivaldi’s Concerto for Flautino, which had inspired some childhood memories for Brown. The prop of the red ball adds a playful, childlike element, as it is tossed between dancers, held out on one palm, or gazed at as both hands cup it next to the dancer’s torso in a meditative pose. But most of the time, the dancers are in constant motion, creating circles that make visual the spiraling flute music: from a quick ronde de jambe to tightly linked turns to larger arcs, as they lope past one another. It’s a marvelously energetic and energizing piece.

The mood switch after intermission was to Djuric’s tribute to Billie Holiday, ToDay, set to an original score by Barbara Kolb; and to Ostaltsov’s premiere, On the Turning Away. Djuric’s piece debuted last spring, with Leticia Guerrero stepping into the role at the last minute. Here, Guerrero gets the chance to expand upon the movement, embellishing it with her own emotional intensity and thereby highlighting the impact of Djuric’s risk-taking, rule-breaking choreography. Gleb Lyamenkoff, Eivar Sair, and Davide Vittorino are also excellent, as they keep the flow while making unusual lifts with Guerrero or accomplishing difficult moves themselves. ToDay is a breathtaking standout in this workshop.

Not that the others are sluffers, in any way. Ostaltsov’s On the Turning Away is a powerful statement about war, with three young women in mourning clothes: black skirts, tops, and head shawls, and Ostaltsov himself in the dull green uniform of a generic soldier. Set to the Pink Floyd tune of the same name, this short melodrama is a glimpse into the realities of life in any of dozens of war-torn regions.

Busy Being Born, choreographed and performed by Caitlyn Novero to Led Zeppelin’s "White Summer / Black Mountain Side," shifts the mood again. This is an incredibly fast-paced, upbeat showcase for Novero’s sparkling technique of bright, fast-paced twists, rolls, runs, turns, head bobs, and a backward somersault thrown in for good measure.

The last premiere of the evening is Cavanaugh’s Schumann Songs, set to the songs that Robert Schumann created from Adalbert von Chamisso’s sentimental poem-cycle, Frauenliebe und Leben, A Woman’s Love and Life. Three pairs of dancers portray the outpouring of feelings in these songs, from the longings of a young girl to meet her true love, through that meeting and marriage, the birth of her child, and her mate’s death. Sair, Vittorino, and Guerrero are joined by Jennifer Ricci, Heather O’Halloran, and Ty Parmenter, in interlocking pas de deux, with Ricci as the main persona in the poems. Cavanaugh’s movement matches Chamisso’s romantic lyrics, with adolescent yearning in the reach and stretch of arms and arabesques, with tenderness in the turns and lifts between the couples, and with support and comfort offered by O’Halloran and Guerrero to Ricci. In mood and movement, Schumann Songs has a distinctly classical ballet feel to it.

Seven presentations in 90 minutes: a spectrum of dance and dancers. Because Up CLOSE, On HOPE has been sold-out in its previous two Saturday series, Festival Ballet Providence has added a show on Sunday, March 28 at 6 p.m. Here’s your chance for a ballet sampler, a "short-attention-span" format for those who fade out during longer performances.