A new ballet company is taking shape in Omaha. Ballet Nebraska hopes to be up and running by fall 2010 to fill the void left by the Omaha Theater Ballet.

Omaha Theater Ballet is the state's only professional dance company. Thursday it will launch its farewell season. It will close after its final performance in February 2010.

"We're still in the very early stages," said dancer and choreographer Erika Overturff, one of Ballet Nebraska's organizers. "But we wanted to announce it now so people will know that ballet can have a future in Omaha. We didn't want our audiences coming to the theater with a heavy heart. We want this whole season to be a celebration of what Omaha Theater Ballet has done, and of what we hope Ballet Nebraska can do."

The Rose Theater, the Omaha Theater Ballet's parent organization, announced on Sept. 30 that it could no longer afford the expenses of operating the ballet company, and would shut it down at the end of the season to focus on its core children's-theater programs.

The company's affiliated ballet school will close at the end of its term in May.

Omaha Theater Ballet artistic director Robin Welch and principal dancer Rachel Vickrey have announced plans to open their own school, Robin Welch Dance Arts, by summer 2010, so the school's students can continue their training without interruption.