“Khepri” made a fun vehicle for this celebratory arrival, but choreographically it feels more like a super-high-level recital showcase than a repertory mainstay. The prolific Ochoa knows how to package spectacle around a visual conceit, and here she chose the scarab beetle and its mythological role as an Egyptian deity. The costumes by Mark Zappone hearken slightly to Jerome Robbins’ bug-ballet “The Cage,” with black squiggles down the back, while adding a carapace-like chest-piece of golden ruffles and gold headbands that impart a tinge of late 1980’s flash. 

Ochoa’s musical selections begin with a driving score for strings by Georg Pelecis that incorporates a curious Americana/folk dance element in the melodies (violinist Michael Jinsoo Lim was superb), then veer into darker selections by Karl Jenkins. One of these, the Largo from Jenkins’s “Palladio” concerto, I have also seen treated by Helgi Tomasson, in choreography much more responsive to the music’s poignantly shifting moods. In Ochoa’s ballet, a duet for James Kirby Rogers and Elizabeth Murphy (both exquisite) is full of inventive partnering—Kirby nuzzling Murphy’s waist seamlessly becomes a shoulder lift—but seems to treat the structure of the music as so much sonic wallpaper. Kuu Sakuragi blasted through in a solo role looking appropriately beetle-like in his crouching style, and the ensemble of 12 had some effective moments in a line-up of silhouettes. But if I had to choose an adjective for the whole ballet, that would be it: “effective,” as in knowingly crafted but unsubtle.