Anniversary celebrations abound this year, in a dance season that seems conspicuously preoccupied with the past. But in some cases the old is a foundation for the new. Queer adaptations of Ballets Russes classics, a “Rite of Spring” performed by dancers from 14 African countries, a bluegrass version of an Agnes de Mille masterpiece: Artists and companies are pulling history into the present by rethinking, rather than simply revisiting, familiar repertory. (Dates are subject to change; please check websites.)
September
2023 CROSSING THE LINE FESTIVAL The dance offerings at the French Institute Alliance Française’s annual festival range from celebratory to contemplative. The choreographer Tatiana Desardouin’s “Les 5 Sens,” a collaboration with the artist Nubian Néné, offers an all-night hip-hop dance party at the Standard Hotel’s Boom Boom Room (Sept. 14). Smaïl Kanouté’s “Never Twenty One,” a U.S. premiere, remembers young people of color who have lost their lives to gun violence (Sept. 27, FIAF Florence Gould Hall). And Olivier Tarpaga’s “Once the dust settles, flowers bloom” considers the plight of refugees from Burkina Faso (Oct. 3-8, the Joyce Theater).
MATTHEW LUTZ-KINOY In 1938, the impresario Lincoln Kirstein’s experimental troupe Ballet Caravan premiered Lew Christensen’s “Filling Station,” an American ballet set at a distinctly American locale: a gas station. The multidisciplinary artist Matthew Lutz-Kinoy’s “Filling Station,” a world premiere presented by The Kitchen, reimagines that work for a different America. (Sept. 14-15, Horatio Street Gas Station; Sept. 23, Dia Beacon)
SERPENTWITHFEET For “Heart of Brick,” his first theatrical stage work, the experimental musician serpentwithfeet joins forces with the choreographer Raja Feather Kelly and the multimedia artist Wu Tsang to tell a love story set in the world of queer Black nightlife. (Sept. 15-22, the Joyce Theater)
ABRONS ARTS CENTER Abrons’s fall programming features two works blending dance and theater. Caborca Theater’s bilingual play “Zoetrope” follows multiple generations of a working-class family in Puerto Rico and New York (Sept. 14-Oct. 8); in “Ceremonia,” the choreographer Antonio Ramos and his collaborators the Gangbangers explore Puerto Rican ancestry and belonging (Oct. 19-21).
NEW YORK CITY BALLET The company begins its 75th-anniversary celebration with a fall season (Sept. 19-Oct. 15) focused on history, featuring 18 ballets by the company’s founding choreographer, George Balanchine. On Oct. 11 — the date of City Ballet’s inaugural performance in 1948 — the company will recreate its first-ever program, the Balanchine triple bill “Concerto Barocco,” “Orpheus” and “Symphony in C.” And the annual fall gala (Oct. 5) won’t offer the usual parade of designer-costumed world premieres; instead, Balanchine’s “Who Cares?” will get new looks by Wes Gordon for Carolina Herrera. (David H. Koch Theater, Lincoln Center)
BARYSHNIKOV ARTS CENTER This fall the center presents the renowned Odissi dancer Bijayini Satpathy’s first choreographic work, “Abhipsaa — a seeking” (Sept. 21-22), and two world premieres by Christopher Williams: “Jeux” and “A Child’s Tale,” the choreographer’s latest reimaginings of Ballets Russes classics through a queer lens (Oct. 12-15).
ANDREA MILLER At English National Ballet, the consistently ambitious Miller unveils a new dance to Igor Stravinsky’s “Les Noces,” 100 years after the premiere of Bronislava Nijinska’s watershed ballet production. (Sept. 21-30, Sadler’s Wells Theater, London)
THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY It’s a busy fall at the artist-centered organization’s Long Island City headquarters. The choreographer Wanjiru Kamuyu’s “A disguised welcome …” explores the experience of displacement (Sept. 22-23). Takahiro Yamamoto’s “Nothingbeing” considers the liminal space between “being” and “not being” (Oct. 5-7). “Aging Prelude,” by the duo Chameckilerner, has performers of different ages re-enact famous nude paintings and sculptures (Oct. 20-28). Michelle Ellsworth presents two characteristically uncategorizable new works, “Evidence of Labor” and “Post-Verbal Social Network” (Nov. 9-11). And Brian Rogers, the Chocolate Factory’s artistic director, premieres “Small Songs,” a “performed listening environment” for his album of synthesizer pieces (Dec. 6-9).
KAATSBAAN FALL FESTIVAL On September weekends head to the Kaatsbaan Cultural Park in the Hudson Valley for dance and music performances, including the premiere of the choreographer Roderick George’s evening-length “The Missing Fruit” (Sept. 22-23), family-friendly programming from New York Theater Ballet (Sept. 24) and a new production of Tan Dun’s “Ghost Opera” featuring choreography by PeiJu Chien-Pott (Sept. 30-Oct. 1).
ARPINO CHICAGO CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION A prolific choreographer and the co-founder of the Joffrey Ballet, Gerald Arpino helped shape a populist vision for American ballet. The Gerald Arpino Foundation has planned a blowout celebration of the 100th anniversary of his birth, featuring dance companies from across the country performing works spanning his five-decade career. (Sept. 23-24, the Auditorium Theater, Chicago)
BLACK SABBATH — THE BALLET Black Sabbath hammered out its heavy metal sound in Birmingham, England — which means the Birmingham Royal Ballet’s new three-act Black Sabbath extravaganza isn’t quite as Mad Libs as it might seem. The choreographer Pontus Lidberg and the composer Chris Austin lead the ballet’s creative team, which also includes the band’s guitarist, Tommy Iommi. (Sept. 23-30, Birmingham Hippodrome; Oct. 12-14, Theater Royal Plymouth; Oct. 18-21, Sadler’s Wells)
BALLETX The gutsy Philadelphia-based company remains dedicated to new work, bringing three New York premieres to the Joyce Theater: Jamar Roberts’s “Honey,” to music by the pianist Don Shirley; Darrell Grand Moultrie’s contemplative “Sacred Impermanence”; and Jennifer Archibald’s “Exalt,” which melds pointe work and street dance. (Sept. 27-Oct. 1)
FALL FOR DANCE This annual festival continues to draw crowds thanks to its affordable tickets (all seats are $20) and sampler-platter programming. This year’s five-bill lineup has two commissions: a collaboration between the B-girl Ephrat Asherie and the tap star Michelle Dorrance; and Adesola Osakalumi’s partial reconstruction of “Jam on the Groove,” one of the first works to bring hip-hop dance to the concert stage. Other notable offerings: Madrid’s Sergio Bernal Dance Company, which blends ballet and flamenco, makes its U.S. debut; the Odissi virtuoso Bijayini Satpathy performs “Sitaharan”; and the Paris Opera Ballet stars Hugo Marchand and Germain Louvet dance Maurice Béjart’s “Songs of a Wayfarer.” (Sept. 27-Oct. 8, New York City Center)
GIBNEY The presenting arm of the multi-limbed Gibney organization will offer three dance programs at Gibney Center this fall: Vim Vigor Dance Company in “Punchline,” choreographed and performed by Shannon Gillen and Jason Cianciulli (Sept. 28-30); 2nd Best Dance Company in a world premiere commissioned by Gibney (Nov. 2-4); and YY Dance Company in two pieces choreographed by its founder and director, Yue Yin (Nov. 30-Dec. 2). Then Gibney’s performing company goes to New York Live Arts with a world premiere by Fernando Melo, exploring the human capacity for connection across boundaries (Dec. 14-20).
LINCOLN CENTER A series of social dance parties at the center’s David Rubenstein Atrium will bring the fizzy energy of Midsummer Night’s Swing indoors (Sept. 29-Dec. 15). Other fall dance programming includes Purcell’s “The Fairy Queen” as envisioned by the choreographer Mourad Merzouki and the renowned Baroque ensemble Les Arts Florissants (Nov. 2, Alice Tully Hall); and Akram Khan’s “Jungle Book reimagined,” which depicts Mowgli as a climate change refugee (Nov. 16-18, Rose Theater).
92NY HARKNESS DANCE CENTER The organization formerly known as the 92nd Street Y kicks off its 150th birthday with the tap ensemble Dorrance Dance, performing its hit “SoundSpace” and new works by company members (Sept. 29). In November, the dance-theater troupe MeenMoves brings Sameena Mitta’s “W(h)ine Pairings,” a work for dancers and a sommelier (Nov. 3 and 5); and the Batsheva Ensemble, from Israel, mounts Ohad Naharin’s in-the-round “Kamuyot” (Nov. 18-19). For the holidays, the Bang Group in David Parker’s “Nut/Cracked” is a cheerfully oddball alternative to traditional seasonal dance fare (Dec. 16).
BALA DEVI CHANDRASHEKAR This acclaimed performer and scholar of the Indian classical form Bharatanatyam presents the U.S. premiere of her solo “Padmavati: An Avatar,” at Symphony Space on Sept. 30.
LIGIA LEWIS The experimental choreographer, whose works often seek traces of history and memory in the Black body, mounts a four-month exhibition at the Center for Arts, Research and Alliances, filling its West Village townhouse with immersive video installations of her previous dances. Anchoring the project is a commission, “study now steady,” a collaboration with two dancers that will be performed four days a week. (Sept. 30-Feb. 4)
MARTHA GRAHAM DANCE COMPANY Founded in 1926, the company begins a three-season celebration of its 100th anniversary this fall. Its new production of Agnes de Mille’s 1942 classic “Rodeo,” featuring a bluegrass version of Copland’s score, premieres Sept. 30 at the Soraya in Los Angeles. In New York, Graham dancers will perform six of her haunting solos from the 1930s in the galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Oct. 7 and 10) — a complement to the museum’s exhibition “Art for the Millions: American Culture and Politics in the 1930s.”
October
WORKS & PROCESS This long-running series at the Guggenheim Museum pulls back the curtain on the creative process and supports the development of new work. Three events spotlight the visions of new or incoming artistic directors: American Ballet Theater’s Susan Jaffe (Oct. 8), San Francisco Ballet’s Tamara Rojo (Oct. 15) and Dance Theater of Harlem’s Robert Garland (Oct. 29-30).
Others bring social and street dance into the concert space, including the choreographer Sekou McMiller’s salsa-jazz exploration “Shine” (Nov. 5); “Wus Poppin NYC,” with the hip-hop dance stars Kwikstep and Rokafella (Nov. 12), and a free social dance party in the museum’s rotunda with Dance Is Life founders Abdiel and Natasha Diggs (Dec. 4). Further highlights include conversations and showings with the choreographers Raja Feather Kelly (Oct. 2) and Lar Lubovitch (Dec. 3), and a look at the career and life of the Broadway luminary Chita Rivera (Nov. 6).
BILL T. JONES/ARNIE ZANE COMPANY An evocative collage of text, live song, recorded sound and dance phrases, “Curriculum II” — part of a series in which Jones considers what the historian and political theorist Achille Mbembe called “a planetary curriculum” — returns to New York Live Arts, Oct. 4-7.
DANSPACE PROJECT FALL 2023 This fall, Danspace presents a collection of world and New York premieres by artists with longstanding relationships to the center: Leslie Parker’s “Divination Tools: imagine home,” which features a collective of Black visual artists, musicians and dancers (Oct. 5-7); Gillian Walsh’s “Wilderness” (Oct. 19-21); Samita Sinha’s “Tremor,” a collaboration with the composer Ash Fure (Nov. 9-11); and the latest solo from Koma, best known as half of the performance duo Eiko and Koma (Dec. 14-16).
DIANNE MCINTYRE GROUP How do dance and music talk to each other? The esteemed choreographer Dianne McIntyre examines that question in “In the Same Tongue,” a premiere featuring an original score by Diedre Murray and poems by Ntozake Shange. (Oct. 5-7, McGuire Theater at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis)
PHILADELPHIA BALLET Known as Pennsylvania Ballet until a 2021 rebranding, the company begins its 60th anniversary celebration with the premiere of the artistic director Angel Corella’s “Carmen,” combining ballet and traditional Spanish dance. (Oct. 5-15, the Academy of Music, Philadelphia)
MALPASO DANCE COMPANY The Cuban contemporary dance troupe premieres its artistic director Osnel Delgado’s “A Dancing Island” — an exploration of Cuban social dances — at Penn Live Arts at UPenn (Oct. 6-7), and then brings the piece to the Joyce Theater in New York the next week (Oct. 10-15).
NEW YORK THEATER BALLET The company’s short but rich fall season includes a world premiere by its new artistic director, Steven Melendez, plus company premieres by Douglas Dunn, David Gordon and Amanda Treiber. (Oct. 6-8, Florence Gould Hall)
HARLEM STAGE For its 40th-anniversary season, the performing arts center is celebrating both established and up-and-coming creators. Ronald K. Brown’s venerable company Evidence will revisit well-known repertory while also highlighting an emerging choreographer of Brown’s choosing (Oct. 13-14); and the center’s commissioning program, WaterWorks, will present an emerging artists showcase including the choreographer and dancer Bobby Morgan (Dec. 9).
HOPEBOYKINDANCE Formerly a beloved performer at Alvin Ailey, Hope Boykin has become an assured choreographer whose works often focus on language — danced, written and spoken. Her new production, “States of Hope,” is a sort of dance-theater memoir, dividing her inner self into seven characters. (Oct. 17-22, the Joyce Theater)
VAN CLEEF & ARPELS DANCE REFLECTIONS The French jeweler, which has staged dance festivals in London and Hong Kong, is sponsoring an impressive event in New York, with performances at seven theaters and an emphasis on international work. Lyon Opera Ballet opens the festival with Lucinda Childs’s masterwork “Dance” at City Center (Oct. 19-21), and the French collective (La)Horde and Ballet National de Marseille present two programs at N.Y.U.’s Skirball Center (Oct. 20-21 and 25-26).
United States premieres include Dorothée Munyaneza’s “Mailles” at New York Live Arts (Oct. 26-27), Rachid Ouramdane’s “Corps extrêmes” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (Oct. 27-29) and Ola Maciejewska’s “Bombyx Mori” at Florence Gould Hall (Nov. 2-3). The Joyce Theater will present “Dancing With Glass,” with five choreographers offering new perspectives on Philip Glass’s piano études (Nov. 28-Dec. 10). And a cast of dancers from African countries will perform Pina Bausch’s thunderous “The Rite of Spring” at the Park Avenue Armory (Nov. 29-Dec 14).
AMERICAN BALLET THEATER The company leaves its signature story ballets behind this fall, presenting three programs of shorter, mostly plotless works. Jiri Kylian’s sinuous “Petite Mort,” George Balanchine’s majestic “Ballet Imperial” and Harald Lander’s crowd-pleasing “Études” return; and Alonzo King’s introspective “Single Eye” gets another run after its 2022 premiere. Alexei Ratmansky, the former artist in residence, has decamped for New York City Ballet, but Ballet Theater’s lineup includes two Ratmansky ballets, “Piano Concerto #1” and “On the Dnipro.” (Oct. 18-29, David H. Koch Theater)
2023 BAM NEXT WAVE FESTIVAL Though significantly reduced this year, the Next Wave slate at the Brooklyn Academy of Music includes noteworthy premieres. In “Broken Chord,” making its U.S. debut, the South African choreographer Gregory Maqoma and the composer Thuthuka Sibisi evoke the story of a 19th-century South African choir’s journey to England (Oct. 19-21). Trajal Harrell’s “The Köln Concert” takes on the jazz pianist Keith Jarrett’s tour de force recording (Nov. 2-4). And Okwui Okpokwasili and Peter Born’s “Adaku, Part 1: The Road Opens” makes its New York premiere (Nov. 28-Dec. 2).
“INTELLIGENCE” A collaboration between Houston Grand Opera and Urban Bush Women, this world-premiere opera tells the story of two unlikely Civil War spies: one the daughter of a prominent Confederate family, one born into slavery. Directed and choreographed by the Urban Bush Women founder Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. (Oct. 20-Nov. 3, Brown Theater, Houston)
“BODY / SHADOW” This multimedia opera with choreography by Douglas Dunn features 15 dancers performing a series one-minute routines — Dunn chooses their order in real time — which in turn activate a collection of video projections. (Oct. 27-28, Judson Memorial Church)
BALLETCOLLECTIVE The choreographer Troy Schumacher’s elegant ensemble presents world premieres by Schumacher and Omar Román De Jesús that explore themes of probability and chance. (Oct. 31-Nov. 2, Trinity Commons)
PAUL TAYLOR DANCE COMPANY In addition to classic Taylor works, the troupe’s fall programming features five dances by other choreographers, including world premieres by Larry Keigwin and the resident choreographer Lauren Lovette. Her “Echo,” created for the men of the company, will be paired with Ulysses Dove’s 1986 “Vespers,” danced by its women; Lovette’s “Dreammachine” will also make its New York debut. (Oct. 31-Nov. 12, David H. Koch Theater)
November
PERFORMA 23 BIENNIAL The 10th edition of this performance-focused biennial includes the premiere of Julien Creuzet’s “Algorithm ocean true blood moves,” a collaboration with the choreographer Ana Pi, which draws on movements culled from Instagram (Nov. 1-19); the ensemble Juni One Set’s “Boy Mother/Faceless Bloom,” an interdisciplinary telling of the story of a young boy who learns he will become a mother (Nov. 16-18); and the artist Marcel Dzama’s “Trip to the Moon,” at Abrons Art Center, with dance, imagery and music inspired by a poem by Federico García Lorca (Nov. 1-19).
STEPHEN PETRONIO COMPANY During pandemic shutdowns, the veteran choreographer Stephen Petronio recorded his own improvisatory movements as he worked in isolation. They became the starting point for “Breath of the Beast,” an evening-length premiere created in collaboration with the violinist Jennifer Koh, who will perform live at each performance. (Nov. 2-4, N.Y.U. Skirball Center)
“WATCH NIGHT” In its inaugural season, the long-awaited Perelman Performing Arts Center is going both big and eclectic — as exemplified by “Watch Night,” a world premiere conceived by the choreographer and director Bill T. Jones and the poet Marc Bamuthi Joseph, with music by Tamar-kali. Melding opera, slam poetry and Jones’s potent movement, the piece explores justice and forgiveness in the aftermath of tragedy. (Nov. 3-18)
KYLE MARSHALL CHOREOGRAPHY The company’s first Joyce Theater program features three New York premieres by Marshall, including “Alice,” which uses the music of Alice Coltrane to guide a journey of self-acceptance. (Nov. 8-12)
PAM TANOWITZ “Song of Songs” — a collaboration between Tanowitz and the composer David Lang that offers an exquisitely restrained response to the biblical poem — makes its New York City debut. (Nov. 9-11, New York City Center)
JOHN F. KENNEDY CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS The Washington hub’s dance season begins with “Anubandh — Connectedness,” a new solo by the Bharatanatyam artist Malavika Sarukkai (Nov. 10-11); and the dance artist and scholar LaTasha Barnes’s abundantly joyful “The Jazz Continuum” (Nov. 17-18). Then come two “Nutcracker” options: a traditional production from Ballet West (Nov. 22-26) and the choreographer Michelle Dorrance’s tap twist on the classic (Nov. 30-Dec. 2).
COMPLEXIONS CONTEMPORARY BALLET This fall, Complexions will become the rare dance company to boast a poet in residence: the MacArthur fellow Aaron Paul Dworkin, who will perform with the troupe on the opening night of its two-week Joyce Theater season, which includes world premieres by Jenn Freeman, Abdul Latif and Dwight Rhoden. (Nov. 14-26)
ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER Ailey returns to its pre-pandemic-size five-week run at New York City Center this year, its 65th anniversary. The company has a new artist in residence program, designed to involve choreographers more in the organization; Amy Hall Garner kick-starts her residency with a premiere this season. Other highlights include premieres from the artistic director Robert Battle and the former company dancer Elizabeth Roxas-Dobrish; and an evening celebrating the trailblazing women of Ailey. (Nov. 29-Dec 31)
LESLIE CUYJET Marion Cuyjet, the choreographer Leslie Cuyjet’s great-aunt, played a pivotal role in dance education, helping to train Black dancers in Philadelphia when the city’s white studios refused them. “With Marion,” inspired partly by that history, is a multilayered look at identity that draws on both memory and research, including material from her family archive. (Nov. 30-Dec. 3, The Kitchen)
December
NATIONAL SAWDUST Two shows here this fall hinge on dance. The dance troupe Tiffany Mills Company joins forces with the contemporary music group Ensemble Ipse for a trilogy of dance-theater works (Dec. 2-3); and the dancer and engineer Catie Cuan, an innovator in the emerging field of choreorobotics, performs an eight-hour duet with a robotic arm in “Breathless: Catie and the Robot.” (Dec. 16)
“IS IT THURSDAY YET?” Three years ago, at 33, the dancer and choreographer Jenn Freeman was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. In this piece, co-directed and choreographed by Sonya Tayeh, Freeman layers dance, music and home videos to illustrate the ways her understanding of herself have changed. (Dec. 8-23, Perelman Performing Arts Center)
“MARCH” What should we make of the very human impulse to move together in unison? An intergenerational group of choreographers — Tendayi Kuumba, Annie-B Parson and Donna Uchizono — consider our preoccupation with synchronization in this world premiere program by Big Dance Theater, featuring three works performed in the round. (Dec. 10-16, Perelman Performing Arts Center)
CALEB TEICHER A newly expanded version of the dancer and choreographer Caleb Teicher’s clever, playful “Bzzz,” in which tap dancers and beatboxers find common ground in rhythmic sounds, comes to the Joyce (Dec. 12-17).
Source: Read Full Article
