Ski boots are not the usual footwear of choice for dancers — unless they happen to be members of James Sewell Ballet. On Friday night the game performers proved that clunky can be cool in the premiere of "New Moves" at the Cowles Center in Minneapolis.

The first section of the work, developed during a residency in Montana, draws inspiration from such recreational activities as skiing, fly fishing and paragliding. The dancers don skis to simulate swooshing down the slopes, bending and swaying, rolling with the moguls.

They use aerial silks to soar across the stage and wriggle about like doomed trout about to become dinner. Steven Rydberg's original score, performed live by Zeitgeist New Music Ensemble, enhances the sense of lively ease under a big sky.

"New Moves" has two other sections, one focused on the dynamics of fighting and the other on the spontaneity of children's moves.

While these ideas offer many opportunities to explore a range of kinetic moods from aggression to awkwardness, the choreographic perspective for bundling them together as a suite with the first section remains unclear.

Perhaps "New Moves" as a whole is intended as a meditation on the diversity of human motion, but without more robust thematic links the premise is too thin, despite the consistent presence of Zeitgeist's playful sonic energy.

Newcomers Jordan Lefton and Laurie Nielsen perform "Le Corsaire pas de deux" (based on a revival by Marius Petipa) with mature assurance.

They complement one another's compact strength and their solo turns display virtuosity as well as high spirits.

Nielsen has a particularly adventurous and even aggressive pointe technique, showcased in the opening moments of "The rest of everything" by Joanna Kotze, a Bessie Award-winning choreographer from New York.

Kotze's welcome contribution to the Sewell repertory is a sleek effort that combines a fluid pedestrian style (think postmodern pioneer Lucinda Childs) with short sharp shocks of electrical pulse.

The evening closed, fittingly enough, with Sewell's Halloween-inspired romp "Grave Matters." A fidgety and hungry pack of zombies (plus ingénue/snack Deanna Gooding) draws appreciation for their herky-jerky vibe, moments of ghoulish grace and brief "Thriller" homage.

Caroline Palmer is a Minneapolis dance writer.