Ballet wasn’t supposed to become Amy Seiwert’s passion. When she was six, she planned to pursue gymnastics like her sister, so she had a real problem with her mom enrolling her in a dance class. Back then, the tomboy equated ballet with pink and tutus.

“I kind of went kicking and screaming,” she recalls by phone. “Then I took my first class and got to run around and jump. It wasn’t what I thought it was going to be, and I loved it. I was hooked immediately.”

Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley hopes Bodies of Technology, premiering March 27, will help audiences make a similar discovery. Far from another revival of a well-known classic, the program promises to be a creative collision—a “celebration of dance in the digital age,” according to Jose Manuel Carreno, Ballet SJSV’s artistic director.

Bodies of Technology will feature two world premieres and a revival of Jessica Lang’s Eighty-One, presented by the company in 2013.

“This Might Be True,” Seiwert’s world premiere, will integrate a visual system orchestrated by software artist Frieder Weiss that will project changing visuals on her dancers. Using a computer, a camera, a projector and “a lot of VGA cables,” Weiss’ program responds to a dancer’s movements in real time.

Russian-born Yuri Zhukov is behind “User’s Manual,” Technology‘s second world premiere. A dancer and choreographer who’s spent time with Mariinsky Ballet in St. Petersburg, San Francisco Ballet and Royal Swedish Ballet, his contribution will be grounded in the notion of making the artificial appear organic.

“I’m trying to imagine the movement of an artificial being constructed from steel and silicon with a chip in their head and access to information (on the) Internet,” he explains. “They can examine the movement that is hanging in the cloud.”

His title was inspired by the J—hann J—hannsson composition, “Printer,” which he uses during his piece’s second movement. The track recites user manual instructions for an IBM 1401 data processing printer alongside spare vibes that build to a wave of sweeping strings.

As his musical decision helps explain, he wanted to examine his piece “from a point of view of development.” His first and third movements will be composed by San Francisco chamber duo Living Earth Show.

As part of the evening’s program, Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley will also be reprising Jessica Lang’s Eighty One, a 2013 world premiere from the company. After Friday and Saturday evening performances, Bodies of Technology will conclude with a Sunday matinee performance at 1:30pm.

Bodies of Technology
Mar 27-29, $25-$110
California Theatre