The choreographer and founding artistic director of the new Moving Art Dance Company draws from the classic ballets of George Balanchine, while adding morphing yoga poses as performance art.

McCarty, who has a reputation as an avant-garde choreographer, got the idea for Moving Art after seeing that there was a local audience for this kind of performance, but no resident company. For her, "Still Elements" is about answering the question, "How can I take this movement and play with it?"

She explains: "I'll manipulate movement qualities in time, through the arms and torso. Yoga breathing techniques ... overlap with movement to form a canon."

At a rehearsal at Gabriel's Corner last week, Rose Baz, Michelle Bump, McCarty and Holly Price surrounded singer/

songwriter Rebecca Vie Parker, who executed a yoga headstand and split after singing in a clear soprano. They alternated slow poses, like holding a leg at shoulder height, quick thrusts, and audible breaths.

"Rebecca is the center of the universe, from which we all spoke out," McCarty says later. "Each as an element. Fire is combustive and muscular. Air has qualities of touch and equilibrium. Water evokes blood and liquid. Earth is represented by bones and gravity."

The troupe's plans include a March performance of "Grrls with Guns," the Cincinnati Fringe Festival in June, and the Performance and Time Arts Series in December.