Over the next two months, a bevy of new works have their premieres and a major festival returns to London. (And keep an eye out for our breakdown of the danciest new musicals hitting Broadway stages this spring—we’ll be covering 10 dance-heavy shows aiming to open before the Tony eligibility cutoff.) Here’s what we’re hoping to catch.
Staging Censorship
Dance NOW! Miami rehearsing Blue Pencil. Photo by Amanda Davis, courtesy Dance NOW! Miami.
MIAMI AND CASCAIS, PORTUGAL In Blue Pencil, the color of censorship stains societies. This latest collaboration between Dance NOW! Miami and Portugal’s Dança em Diálogos—whose artistic director, Solange Melo, shares choreographic credit with DNM directors Hannah Baumgarten and Diego Salterini—documents history and rings out a timely warning. As 2024 saw a record number of books banned in the U.S., with Florida topping the list, relevance looms large here in portrayals of resilience referencing the Portuguese government’s mid-20th-century suppression of discourse with the strokes of a censor’s pencil. Alongside other repertory, DNM premieres its portion of this defiant work at Miami Theater Center Feb. 28 before blending casts with the overseas troupe for the complete piece at Vila das Artes in Cascais, Portugal, March 12. dancenowmiami.org. —Guillermo Perez
Gathering Jewels
Shu Lea Cheang and Dondon Hounwn’s Hagay Dreaming. Photo by Hsuan Lang Lin, courtesy Martha Oakes PR.
LONDON Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels returns to London with a bang, with 15 performance programs scattered between Sadler’s Wells, the Royal Opera House, Tate Modern, and Southbank Centre. Hagay Dreaming, a collaboration between Taiwanese American artist Shu Lea Cheang and Indigenous performance artist Dondon Hounwn, inspired by an Indigenous Taiwanese legend about a hunter encountering spirits called Hagay in a dream, debuts at the Tate Modern March 13–15. Pam Tanowitz premieres Neither Drums nor Trumpets, a work drawing on the storied history of the Royal Opera House and performed in its airy Paul Hamlyn Hall, March 25–26. Jules Cunningham alights at Sadler’s Wells East March 27–28 with two premieres of their own: CROW, a reimagining of a duet performed by Julius Eastman and Pauline Oliveros nearly 50 years ago in New York City, and Pigeons, which draws on pigeon groupings and behavior to question ways of being alone and together, set to Eastman’s Gay Guerilla. Further offerings include works by George Balanchine, Trisha Brown, and Merce Cunningham, as well as a slew of European companies and artists, plus workshops for both professionals and nondancer audience members. March 12–April 8. dancereflections-vancleefarpels.com. —Courtney Escoyne
Step by Step
Rennie Harris Puremovement in Harris’ P-Funk. Photo by Mark Garvin, courtesy Penn Live Arts.
PHILADELPHIA Featuring dancers steeped in regional street styles from across the U.S., Rennie Harris’ American Street Dancer celebrates the outsized impact of hip hop on the arts world. Philadelphia’s Rennie Harris Puremovement is joined by Michael Manson and his House of Jit, from Detroit, and Chicago footwork specialists Creation Global led by King Charles, as well as DJ Razor Ramon. The work is set to premiere March 14–15 at Penn Live Arts, where Harris is currently the artist in residence. pennlivearts.org. —CE
A Dangerous Disco
Lisa Fagan and Lena Engelstein. Photo by Maria Baranova, courtesy New York Live Arts.
NEW YORK CITY Lisa Fagan and Lena Engelstein descend upon New York Live Arts to premiere their latest dance theater work. Set in 1976, Friday Night Rat Catchers begins with contestants dancing beneath a shimmering disco ball, only for the party to come to a screeching halt after their game is reconfigured and hunks of cement puncture the dancehall’s blissful bubble. Who, if anyone, comes out on top? March 27–29. newyorklivearts.org. —CE
Past and Present
Bridge to Now / a bridge towards the present. Photo by Robbie Sweeny, Courtesy Lenora Lee Dance.
SAN FRANCISCO In A Bridge to Now / Un Puente hacia el Presente, collaborators Lenora Lee and Moyra Silva Rodríguez excavate the histories of Chinese immigrants to the U.S. and Peru. Informed by interviews with the descendants of Chinese indentured servants in both countries, which augment Tatsu Aoki and Francis Wong’s sound score, the multimedia work interrogates the legacies and scars left by the pairing of labor exploitation and anti-immigrant sentiment on these communities, while also honoring their perseverance and cultural contributions. After premiering in Peru last fall, the work receives its U.S. premiere at Dance Mission Theater March 28–30. lenoraleedance.com. —CE
Regency Road Trip
Last year’s production of Cabaret at the Old Globe was directed and choreographed by Josh Rhodes. Photo by Jim Cox, courtesy Old Globe.
SAN DIEGO Regency Girls follows a young, unmarried woman in 19th-century England as she goes on a life-changing road trip with her three best friends to look for help after realizing she’s pregnant and facing social ruin. The new musical comedy, directed and choreographed by Josh Rhodes, runs at San Diego’s Old Globe April 2–May 4. theoldglobe.org. —CE
Bringing It Back
Reggie Wilson’s Big BRICK: a man’s piece. Photo by Alexandra Corazza, courtesy Helene Davis PR.
NEW YORK CITY In The Reclamation, choreographer Reggie Wilson returns to the ideas underpinning his early work, investigating their gestural movement vocabularies and the new questions they raise in a search for a way through today’s frenetic times. Fist and Heel Performance Group premieres the work at NYU Skirball April 4–5. nyuskirball.org. —CE
Getting Jazzy
ODC/Dance. Photo by RJ Muna, courtesy John Hill PR.
SAN FRANCISCO Sidra Bell creates her first work for ODC/Dance to music (performed live) by avant-garde jazz composer Mary Halvorson, premiering as part of the company’s Dance Downtown program at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Artistic director Brenda Way’s Unintended Consequences (A Meditation) and associate choreographer Kimi Okada’s Inkwell round out the program. Plus, an excerpt from Way’s After the Deluge, a response to the impacts of climate change slated to debut next year, will be shown during the company’s April 11 gala performance. April 10–13. odc.dance. —CE
Familiar and Unfamiliar
Daniel Charon’s Purple Sonata 24. Photo by Stuart Ruckman, courtesy Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company.
SALT LAKE CITY For its RE-ACT program, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company premieres two new works: one by artistic director Daniel Charon, in collaboration with director and dramaturg Alexandra Harbold, and the other by Atlanta-based dancemaker Annalee Traylor, the company’s inaugural Choreographic Canvas commissioned artist. April 17–19. ririewoodbury.com. —CE
Taking Aim
A.I.M by Kyle Abraham’s Jamaal Bowman and Olivia Wang. Photo by Carrie Schneider, courtesy Richard Kornberg & Associates.
NEW YORK CITY A.I.M by Kyle Abraham returns to The Joyce Theater with a premiere by the company’s founder (his first collaboration with composer Shelley Washington), recent works by Andrea Miller (YEAR) and Rena Butler (Shell of A Shell of The Shell), and Paul Singh’s Just Your Two Wrists, with the David Lang score played live by Trio Mediæval. April 22–27. joyce.org. —CE
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