Rather than stitch together Elvis hits, Ochoa worked with sound designer Jake Rodriguez to devise a score stitching snippets of his singing into a driving electronic soundscape punctuated with interviews about him. There’s nothing revelatory in the soundbites, but the score does touch on Presley’s appropriation of Black music artists, and calls out the names of talents he channeled without credit: Joe Turner, Big Mama Thornton, Joe Brown. Meanwhile, rather than blue suede shoes, the 13-member ensemble is dressed in electric blue gloves (sexy costume design by Susan Roemer), and stomp around a cleverly wheel-able TV sound stage (scenic work by Alexander V. Nichols).

The ensemble movement certainly takes the Smuin dancers out of their usual comfort zone as they swing their heads and gyrate, and I love a good hair-whipping dance, but the choreography in this vein mostly recycles moves you might see in a cardio exercise class. Elvis’s deep connection to gospel music is a thread, but the catharsis is overplayed with Jace Pauly’s “Amazing Grace” solo in a white leather jacket streaming angel-wing fringe. “Tupelo Tornado” ends with a balletic pas de deux for Tessa Barbour and Dominic Barrett to “Love Me Tender.” Here as throughout the ballet, the point is driven home: How sad that despite the public adoration, Elvis couldn’t believe anyone really loved him. This is the problem with ballets about famous real people (and I think it’s a problem with Ochoa’s more successful “Broken Wings,” too, about Frida Kahlo): You need an angle on the character to drive the piece, but you have to spend that insight upfront, and then there’s nowhere for the ballet to go.