DANCE REVIEW : ABT Performs Glen Tetley’s Arobatic ‘Voluntaries’ : Amanda McKerrow and Guillaume Graffin leap, lift, pose and contort in the grieving yet hopeful memorial to choreographer Cranko.

One choreographer’s memorial to another marked the American Ballet Theatre program Thursday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. There were also new leads in two previously seen ballets.

Created in memory of John Cranko, Glen Tetley’s “Voluntaries” sends a central couple and other dancers through gymnastic leaps and jumps and overhead lifts and crucifixion poses and pretzel contortions that may suggest grieving and hope for the future.

Amanda McKerrow and Guillaume Graffin danced the principal roles for the first time. McKerrow blossomed with expressive openness, lyricism and wholehearted risk-taking, in addition to her formidable technical mastery.

Graffin gave her solid support and ventured his show-off opportunities with powerful aplomb.

Providing the accompaniment--Poulenc’s Concerto for Organ, Strings and Timpani--Charles Barker conducted a muddied Pacific Symphony. David Shuler was the capable soloist.

New to Agnes de Mille’s “The Other” were Julie Kent as the Maiden opposite Charles Askegard in the title role. Both were taking the roles for the first time.

Kent danced with poise, sweetness and trust in innocent love and with persuasive heartbreak later in letting go of life. Her final smile suggested an intriguing, if enigmatic, visionary happiness.

Askegard added menace and anger to the death figure, but his dancing was inconsistent: sometimes elegant, sometimes rough, sometimes unemphatic.

The clap-happy audience, incidentally, insisted upon applauding as if the doom-laden figures were executing mere circus tricks.

As the new central soloists in Harald Lander’s “Etudes,” Cheryl Yeager was partnered by Gil Boggs and Wes Chapman, who replaced the injured Johan Renvall.

Yeager danced with her usual proficiency and security but also made the Sylphide echoes a bit coy.

Chapman brought a sunnier disposition and more gracious ease to his partnering duties in the role of the other cavalier than the one he had danced opening night.

In the role Chapman had danced on Tuesday, Boggs initially was an effortful technician, but he grew increasingly crisp and secure, to end his virtuoso challenges in a blaze.

ABT concludes its center engagement with four performances of “Giselle” this weekend, each with a different cast.