Like a comet crossing local skies, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago makes 1 of its brilliant periodic appearances at Power Center Thursday through Saturday, under University Musical Society auspices.

Perhaps the most exciting thing to report about this sighting is that the performances should be everything you remember and liked — the energy, the prowess of the dancers, the high-octane choreography — only different.

“I feel like taking over the company has given me an opportunity to expand on all the great things that were already happening,” said Glenn Edgerton, the company’s former associate artistic director who recently took over the top slot from former artistic Jim Vincent.

Before coming to HSDC in 2008, Edgerton spent a lot of time, both as a dancer and as artistic director, at the forward-looking Nederlands Dans Theater, presenting leading choreographers like Jirí Kylián, Ohad Naharin, Mats Ek, Jorma Elo and Nacho Duato, many of whom have been HSDC mainstays in recent years.

“We have the availability of all of these,” he said, “and there are also choreographers who are relatively unknown but who are fantastic, and whom I consider the next generation of great choreographers.”

The company’s Power Center lineup gives audiences a meet-and-greet with choreographers from both camps, but even when the company is presenting old friends, like Kylián, there are surprises afoot.

On its 3 programs, 2 works remain constant all nights: Kylián’s “27’ 52”” to a score by German composer Dirk Haubrich, and Johan Inger’s “Walking Mad,” both of which are new in Ann Arbor and for the company.

But the Kylián is not only new, it is unique to HSDC in North America: the company is the only 1 on this side of the pond that Kylián has given rights to perform the work, which was created for Nederlands Dans Theater in 2002.

Meredith Dincolo and Benjamin Wardell in "27’ 52”."

photo by Todd Rosenberg

Kylián made “27’ 52,”” Edgerton said, in response to text the dancers brought to him, text “that resonated for them and spoke to them in a profound way.”

“From there,” Edgerton continued, “he created movement based on the text, as if creating a sign language of movement recreating the text.”

Manipulating the movement and the text, and even the very floor on which the dancers stand, Kylián “plays with elements of time and the fragility of time,” in a highly theatrical way, Edgerton said.

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago performing “27’ 52””:

It’s not the floor, but a wall that is the scenic element to watch in Inger’s madcap and slightly surreal “Walking Mad,” set to Ravel’s “Bolero.” Like Kylián, Inger, 1 of HSDC’s “new” choreographers, has had a long association with NDT, but as a dancer. He began choreographing less than a decade ago, and he quickly made a reputation for himself in Europe, where he now heads the Cullberg Ballet in his native Sweden.

Inger uses “Bolero” to set the dancers on an adventure, and, says 1 of the dancers performing “Walking Mad,” Michigan native Meredith Dincolo, “the wall is definitely a character in the cast.” “There is a lot of playing with the wall, manipulating the wall,” she said by phone from the company bus heading to Madison, Wisconsin, for a performance a few weeks back. “I would also say there’s a loose cast of characters that set up a scenario — not a storyline per se — that goes from playful to quite dark as the group of dancers takes on these characters.”

It’s a great piece, she added. “You can put all your energy into it, there is no holding back. As the music goes, so does the dancing. One helps drive the other; it’s very satisfying to perform.”

So are the other pieces on the Ann Arbor programs, Dincolo said. She gets a chance to dance in all of them, though not, of course, all on the same night.

Thursday patrons see Ohad Naharin’s “Tabula Rasa,” set to music of Arvo Pärt and radiating a sense of melancholy and loss. Friday, a choreographer nurtured as a dancer in HSDC, Terence Marling, makes an Ann Arbor choreographic debut in “At’em (Adam).” And Saturday, the Ann Arbor audience sees Jorma Elo’s spirited, ballet-technique-based “Bitter Suite.” Elo has become a choreographer to watch, with works for major European and U.S. companies like New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theatre. It’s not the first Elo work the company has danced — that would be “From All Sides” — nor is it likely to be the last for on-the-cutting-edge Hubbard Street.

Susan Isaacs Nisbett is a free-lance writer who covers classical music and dance for AnnArbor.com.

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago performing “Tabula Rasa”: