Septime Webre's style is for anyone who assumes ballet is boring, thinks it's always set to Tchaikovsky and argues it's a far cry from cool.

Washington Ballet Company's artistic director for the past three years, Webre has made a hobby of mixing classical ballet and pop culture.

The company will perform his newest piece, Journey Home, along with two others at 8 tonight in Eisenhower Auditorium.

Journey Home -- a work co-commissioned by the Center for the Performing Arts -- combines Webre's revolutionary choreography with the music of a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock and the scenery of Washington-based artist Sam Gilliam.

"I would say the defining characteristics of Webre's choreography are his wit and his way of playing with form," said Amy Dupain Vashaw, audience and program development director at CPA. "He defines contemporary ballet style. You won't see any stiff tutus. Watching Journey Home, you get the sense of trying to find yourself and your place, however you define that. It's incredibly moving."

With a story by writer Norman Allen, Journey Home "traces the journey of one man through life and the impact his community has on his growth," said Webre. "It really is a piece about every man."

Describing his take on ballet and Journey Home, Webre said, "I cherish the ballet vocabulary, but I'm also an American pop-culture person ... and I think it can be put in a big martini shaker and married with classicism."

So instead of choreographing his piece to classical music, Webre opted for the live vocals of Grammy Award-winning Sweet Honey in the Rock -- an onstage collaboration he called "long and artistically-fulfilling."

"Since the ballet was conceived as a theatrical piece with us performing live onstage, the vocals are very important to the piece itself," said Carol Maillard, a founding member of Sweet Honey.

"Our sound is a mixture of many elements ... it's mellow, powerful, deeply spiritual and insightful and sometimes just plain old fun. We are not just sitting on stage as the band, so to speak. We're part of the piece, a real force."

Along with Journey Home, Washington Ballet will perform Trey McIntyre's Blue Until June, which Webre said "offers a romantic and humorous commentary on life and love to music by blues diva Etta James," and Ben Stevenson's Three Preludes, a set of three delicate pas de deux.

Vashaw said CPA decided to co-commission Webre's collaboration project after being impressed by his work with American Repertory Ballet a few years ago. The center co-commissions one piece almost every year, she said, and tries to support as much diversity as possible.

"That's our way to nurture the field and to make sure we give voice to as wide an array of artists as possible," she said. "We feel we're responsible for giving our constituents a sampling of all genres and ballet is a very important art form. Ballet, at least in this community, has a modestly sized but extraordinarily rapid fan base. Those who are into ballet are really into ballet and we try to bring the best. With this performance, I really think we did just that."

In conjunction with tonight's performance, Gilliam is speaking at noon and 1 p.m. today at Palmer Museum of Art. His most recent paintings -- three-dimensional constructions of varnished acrylic on wood -- are on display at the museum through May 26.

Artistic Viewpoints, Webre's informal discussion of the performance, is held an hour before curtain in the auditorium conference room.

Tickets for the performance are $25 for the general public, $20 for students, $10 for Penn State University Park students and $13 for children. For tickets or more information, call 863-0255 or visit the Arts Ticket Center between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. weekdays. Visit CPA at www.cpa.psu.edu.