A favorite poem. A friend’s music. The interlocking gears of a machine.

All provided inspiration to choreographers who will present pieces at Portland Ballet’s “New Works” on Friday. The annual show features experienced and emerging choreographers, including four current members of the professional dance company.

Nell Shipman, executive and artistic director, feels strongly about giving dancers the opportunity to stage original work. Shipman has been at Portland Ballet in some capacity for 20 years, ever since she danced in a production of “Carmina Burana” in 2004. Early on, she had the opportunity to choreograph a piece for the company. She learned that she loved translating her daydreams into dances.

“Not every dancer is necessarily a choreographer, but when there is a choreographer inside a dancer, it is important to let that voice come out,” she said. “I want to make sure they had the opportunity that I had because it’s important to get out there. It’s great to have this on our season. This is how dance moves forward and continues on.”

Portland Ballet currently has a roster of 19 dancers, ranging from professional to apprentices to trainees. “New Works” is also an an opportunity for audiences to see pieces they’ve never seen before.

“It allows you to go in with the understanding that, ‘This is going to be new to me. I’m going to come away with a different idea of what dance can be,'” Shipman said.

Here are some of the artists who will bring their new works to the stage.

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CHOREOGRAPHER: Annie Kloppenberg is a choreographer, performer and scholar. She has worked with Portland Ballet in the past, but in more recent years, she has been working to establish a partnership between the company and Colby College, where she is the chair of the Department of Performance, Theatre and Dance. Faculty are considered affiliate artists with the company, and Portland Ballet presents two shows a year at the college. Students also can take a course that is based at the ballet for the short January term.

NEW WORK: Kloppenberg has set her piece to French composer Maurice Ravel’s “Boléro,” a classic in the ballet world. Last year, she developed a version with a smaller number of dancers from Portland Ballet, who performed live with the Colby Symphony Orchestra. The musical recording from that show will be used in “New Works,” but Kloppenberg has reimagined the piece with the full company. (Performing without a full orchestra leaves more room for dancers.) Kloppenberg usually starts her choreography with the movement, and the music comes next. She said she has enjoyed the challenge of reversing her process.

ON HER INSPIRATION: “One of the things that Ravel was inspired by was these machines, and I’ve been thinking about the ways that gears turn and glitch and might spin out of control, how these round forms interlock and one propels the other into action. So there’s this balance with stiffness and force and control and momentum.”

Kloppenberg said she is trying to create a “circular energy” in the piece. For example, classical ballet often involves very controlled lifts. In contrast, this piece is less balanced or symmetrical.

“You know that playground game that kids do where they hold hands and lean away and swing in a circle? It’s like that. … We’ve been playing with momentum and power and, I would say, precarity.”

ON CHOREOGRAPHY AS COLLABORATION: “I do a lot of my own work on improvisation and was an improvisational performer for a long time. So over the course of my choreographic career over the last almost 20 years, I’ve gotten more and more comfortable with going into a room without knowing what is going to happen. I’m really able to follow what is happening in front of me.”

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CHOREOGRAPHER: Lydia Wirth started choreographing as a student at Butler University in Indiana, but this piece is her first for a professional company. Originally from Pittsburgh, she is in her second season as a dancer at Portland Ballet.

NEW WORK: The inspiration for Wirth’s piece is a poem called “When I Say We Are All Teen Girls” by Olivia Gatwood. Wirth, 24, loves the poem for the way it celebrates the things about teen girls that are often mocked and belittled.

The poem says: “Imagine the teen girls gone from our world, / and how quickly we would beg for their return, / how grateful would we be then for their loud / enthusiasm / and ability to make a crop top out of anything.”

The work will feature four female dancers, and the music is a combination of four pieces by Germaine Tailleferre, who was the only woman in a group of composers known as “Les Six” in France in the early 1900s.

ON BRINGING AN IDEA TO THE STAGE: Wirth said she listened to the music constantly and developed a clear plan for the movement before the first day of rehearsal. “But seeing the movement on real bodies changes so much. It really brings it to life in a way that’s a lot more exciting. So that was a jumping off point, and then we were able to collaborate a lot from there, not only in terms of the theatrical depth, but the emotional quality of the piece really leveled up once we were in the studio working on it together because were were all able to bring our own emotions to the meaning behind the piece.”

ON HOW CHOREOGRAPHING WILL IMPACT HER DANCING: “When you’re doing it professionally and you’re always in the studio and you’re always learning choreography and taking corrections and getting notes from the person at the front of the room, you can start to feel – you don’t totally appreciate how important your humanity is to the process. It can sometimes be a little bit robotic, like you’re just doing what you’re told. Once you’re in front of the room, you can really tell which dancers are bringing themselves fully to it, and it honors what you’re working on. … It’s a real lesson in why it’s important to bring yourself fully to a piece and to be open to collaborating and be open to giving your input.”

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CHOREOGRAPHER: Jackson Gormley grew up in Long Island, New York, and is in his third season with Portland Ballet. He planned to present his first original piece on pointe as a junior at Point Park University in Pittsburgh, but the pandemic derailed that performance. Still, he has choreographed other works since then, including for last year’s edition of “New Works.”

NEW WORK: Gormley, 25, made a more traditional piece last year. The music was by classical composer Antonio Vivaldi; the dancers wore tight buns and tutus. This year, he said, “I needed something different.”

He reached out to Courtney Hart, a close friend from college who is now a musician and songwriter, and she sent him the music that will feature in his piece for this year’s “New Works.” It is mostly instrumental, but Hart whispers words at times during the song. The piece, which features nine dancers, is more contemporary. He liked the opportunity to support his friend’s art with his own.

ON THE CONNECTION TO LEWISTON MASS SHOOTING: Gormley began developing this piece in the weeks after a mass shooter killed 18 people and injured 13 more in Lewiston on Oct. 25. “I felt like everyone in Maine was so supportive and wanted to be there to help,” he said. “I wanted to emulate that idea.” He said the dance tells a story about healing as a community. “The idea behind the piece is exploring this group healing together and being the support element that you need to get through hard times,” he said.

ON BEING OPEN AS A DANCER: “Choreography has definitely allowed me to open my mind up more to different styles and different ways of approaching movement. Every choreographer has a different approach. I definitely think I come in as a dancer with a new choreographer having an open mind and trying to go with the flow of whatever they’re giving. … I want to be a blank canvas for them.”

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