What comes to mind when you hear the word "ballet?"

I used to visualize traditional tutus, plain tights, lace-up shoes, classical music, super skinny women and a few men sprinkled throughout the performance prancing and leaping around in tights - and, well, even tighter clothing. Um, not going to lie, it never sounded too appealing.

Prior to my first, live ballet experience, the closest I had ever gotten to an actual performance was watching the final dance scene in the movie Center Stage -- which by the way -- you must watch. Would you really expect to see ballet dancers on the same stage as a motorcycle and a bed? Would you expect to see them dance to Michael Jackson and Jamiroquai? Maybe in a movie like Center Stage, but not in the reality of the ballet world, right?

Wrong. Go see a Boulder Ballet performance and you'll realize just how arrogant you've been about ballet.

On Feb. 23, I saw Comedia at The Dairy Center for the Arts in Boulder, the new home to the Boulder Ballet. After more than 30 years of being above Tom's Tavern on Pearl Street, they have recently settled in their new space at The Dairy.

I can't begin to tell you how amazed I was by Comedia. Want some background? Don't leave it to me to give you an educated summary. My senses were on overload during the show - in a good way, of course. However, I'll leave it up to director Peter Davison, mastermind behind the show and current artistic director of Boulder Ballet, to sum it up:

"The two ballets that comprise the Comedia concert -- Bella Luna and Cirque D'Amour -- emerge from the tragicomic nature of human interaction. Both ballets employ a diversity of movement, objects, music, costumes and lighting to create unusually surreal, theatrical work. I have drawn on my background of object manipulation with Airjazz, and teaching with working with cast members of the original Cirque du Soleil.

" Bella Luna is a one-act ballet that premiered in 2004, inspired by the commedia dell'arte, a form of street theater that flourished in Italy from the 16th to 18th centuries. This form of theater involved archetypal characters who portrayed romantic scenarios infused with local politics and highly physical action. The typical story of the father trying to wed his daughter to a rich suitor, while she has fallen in love with a poor boy from the 'wrong side of the tracks,' propels the first part of the ballet. As in the original commedia style, myriad props heighten the action. A unique pas de deux is performed on and around a bicycle.

" Cirque D'Amour is a new work that premieres in Comedia. I have taken a more exploratory approach with this ballet, allowing my imagination free reign to come up with images without an initial 'story' structure to fit into. As the diverse ideas developed, a connection between each emerged; a thematic through-line of love and attraction between people, and some of the ways that those forces manifest and affect people's actions, within a material world. The extensive use of props and apparatus invokes the circus, while the movement is contemporary ballet. Rather than directly stating a theme or story, Cirque D'Amour is meant to lead our imagination places that are familiar or enlightening but difficult to verbalize -- a physical eloquence typical of the art of dance."

No WONDER I couldn't catch a direct theme to the performance. That was the point! And no wonder I'm struggling to describe what I saw in verbal detail. My imagination was running wild throughout. When a performance is based on movement, music, facial expressions and the use of objects (pillows, a bike, umbrellas, red ribbons and more), your creative receptors kick in.

The use of objects and props was simple, yet rich with wonder. At one point, a man was pulling a red ribbon from a woman's chest - and their facial expressions and movements were so real - that I could feel the pain she was expressing. The music was powerful, the movement fit perfectly. (My muscles were tense throughout the whole show, by the way. I was expecting to be fighting off my infamous dosing-off-head-bob like I do every time I fly. Nope. Total opposite.)

How can you not be in a full-body clench and wide-eyed when two people are performing on a ladder that they're holding up for one another? This took place in Part 6 of Act 1 - when Davison and Jennifer Aiken performed to Chris O'Connor's "Standing Outside A Broken Phone Booth With Money In My Hand." (I know. Not your typical ballet song. Awesome.) Of course they made it look so simple, but the balance, confidence and strength that went into it was unbelievable.