Stephanie Batten Bland’s choreography brought a youthful originality to the events of this weekend’s Saratoga ArtsFest.

Her dance company’s performance, “Chapters, an Evening of Repertory” Friday night at the Skidmore Dance Theater gave the Saratoga community a sampler of the fresh talent that Bland and her dancers serve to audiences on both sides of the Atlantic.

Creative juices flow readily through Bland’s veins — the contributions of her father, jazz composer and musician Ed Bland, and her husband, filmmaker Guillame Le Grontec, fueling her innovation. “Chapters, an Evening of Repertory,” opened with a short film, “34th St.,” capturing the family affair that is Bland’s dance.

The film, directed by Le Grontec, focused on Bland, alone on a rooftop, as she danced to the music of her father, the Empire State Building behind her cutting across the sky. Bland’s movements — earthy, uninhibited and buoyant — captured the purest sense of dance. Bland moves joyously, with love.

The chapters of Bland’s performance flowed seamlessly together, without the usual breaks in program between pieces. The removal or modification of elements to the set (long pieces of butcher paper, black vinyl sheets secured with duct tape to the floor) were as much a part of the show as the choreography itself — deliberate, calculated, but completely natural.

Members of Bland’s company, a mini United Nations of Parisians, Japanese and Americans, rose to meet the challenge of Bland’s choreography in the larger pieces — “Apart One World or Two” and “Float Like a Feather.” Each dancer embodied movements that seemed simultaneously instinctive and refined. Twitches, itches, pedaling legs and crab walking were on par with lifts, leaps and arabesques.

Originality and youthfulness shone through Bland’s eclectic musical selection. The intimate duet between Bland and dancer Raphael Kaney Duverger, “Polished Hoes,” combined Bach, James Brown and Louisiana Creole to aid in Bland’s narration of her background and family. “Float Like a Feather” used parts one and two of Mozart’s ominous “Requiem,” the dancers clothed in patterned hospital gowns for an unusual combination of sound and sight. Bland’s inspirations, like jazz, Josephine Baker and Bland’s avian nickname “birdlegs,” do not hide in her choreography. Her style is strong, her attitude playful and her energy unmatched, Bland’s performance offered a short, exciting chapter of what will become a long and rich book

of Bland’s career.