A very nice, and very hip, coup for the Alberta Ballet.

Joni Mitchell will collaborate with artistic director Jean Grand-Maitre on a ballet for the 2006-07 season, Dancing Joni.

Jean had no connection to Joni, other than a love of her music, when the idea hit him about eight months ago.

How about a ballet, he thought to himself, based on Joni's tunes? "Her songs," he says, "have always danced around my head. Besides, she was born in Alberta."

So Jean brushed up on Joni's considerable body of recorded work, especially her post-pop jazz.

Eight months ago, he wrote her a letter with his proposal.

Come on down to Los Angeles, she said. Let's talk.

"I met with her about three weeks ago," says Jean. "She got out of her Jeep at the restaurant, with jeans, a leather jacket, a scarf and she lit a cigarette. (Which meant Jean could smoke, too.)

"We talked all afternoon."

Jean will submit to Joni songs that work, movement-wise, for him. Together they'll make up a set list to which he'll design the dance.

After three hours, he worked up the nerve to ask her ... would she consider writing a new song for the ballet?

"She said she had retired (Joni is now 62) and wasn't recording anymore. But she had found herself writing again, and had three new songs.

"She'll consider recording again, for us."

And, asked Jean, would she come to Edmonton and Calgary in February 2007 for the premieres?

She's thinking about it.