Ballets about fertility rights, fauns, and nymphs are on the ticket for next week’s joint presentation featuring BalletMet and Ohio State’s department of dance. The department of dance consists of OSU professors and students.

Four ballets will be presented daily, Thursday through Sunday, next week at the Wexner Center. One of the ballets is staged by OSU dance professor John Giffin and performed by an OSU cast.

Giffin will present Vaslav Nijinsky’s “L’Apres Midi D’un Faune,” meaning, “The Afternoon of a Faun.”

“It is one of the most famous ballets in all of ballet history,” Giffin said, “Nijinsky was the finest male ballet dancer of his time and a great jumper”.

Nijinsky’s pieces caused controversy for their subject matter and unconventional style. “The Afternoon of a Faun” is about “a mythological half-man, half-goat creature who fantasizes about encounters with wood nymphs,” according to BalletMet’s Web site.

“It was a very modern piece for its time,” Giffin said of the 1912 ballet, it has no recognizable ballet steps is still difficult for dancers.

The main piece features dancers’ legs and heads in profile with their shoulders parallel to the audience. It is tough for a dancer to stay in this position as well as move in it, Giffin said.

This positioning causes a two-dimensional effect, similar to ancient Greek vase paintings, Giffin said.

Another of the pieces to be performed next week is “The Rites of Spring,” which features OSU students and BalletMet dancers. Associate professor Mike Bruce is working with the OSU students performing the piece.

“The Rites of Spring,” debuted by Nijinsky in 1913, nearly caused a riot due to its controversial nature. It was about a fertility right, in which one person would be chosen to be sacrificed, Bruce said.

The piece is being choreographed by Doug Varone, a popular dancer and choreographer, whom the students were eager to work with, Bruce said.

This will be the second time OSU students will be performing with BalletMet dancers, Bruce said.

“It’s a fabulous opportunity for a dancer to do this piece,” Bruce said.

The piece is fast and physical, and there are 30 people on-stage at once. It should be enjoyable for audiences, Bruce said.

The other two pieces will be BalletMet debuts. One of the pieces is BalletMet associate Stanton Welch’s “Firebird,” originally written by Igor Stravinsky. The other is the world premiere of a contemporary work, Maria Glimcher’s “Heart Strings.”

Performances of the ballets will be presented Thursday, May 12 through Sunday, May 15 at various times. Tickets for the performances are available at the Wexner Center and Ticketmaster at various prices for the general public and $10 for students.