Over the subsequent two months, a bevy of latest works have their premieres and a significant competition returns to London. (And maintain an eye fixed out for our breakdown of the danciest new musicals hitting Broadway phases this spring—we’ll be overlaying 10 dance-heavy reveals aiming to open earlier than the Tony eligibility cutoff.) Right here’s what we’re hoping to catch.
Staging Censorship
MIAMI AND CASCAIS, PORTUGAL In Blue Pencil, the colour of censorship stains societies. This newest collaboration between Dance NOW! Miami and Portugal’s Dança em Diálogos—whose inventive director, Solange Melo, shares choreographic credit score with DNM administrators Hannah Baumgarten and Diego Salterini—paperwork historical past and rings out a well timed warning. As 2024 noticed a report variety of books banned within the U.S., with Florida topping the checklist, relevance looms massive right here in portrayals of resilience referencing the Portuguese authorities’s mid-Twentieth-century suppression of discourse with the strokes of a censor’s pencil. Alongside different repertory, DNM premieres its portion of this defiant work at Miami Theater Heart Feb. 28 earlier than mixing casts with the abroad troupe for the whole piece at Vila das Artes in Cascais, Portugal, March 12. dancenowmiami.org. —Guillermo Perez
Gathering Jewels
LONDON Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels returns to London with a bang, with 15 efficiency packages scattered between Sadler’s Wells, the Royal Opera Home, Tate Trendy, and Southbank Centre. Hagay Dreaming, a collaboration between Taiwanese American artist Shu Lea Cheang and Indigenous efficiency artist Dondon Hounwn, impressed by an Indigenous Taiwanese legend a couple of hunter encountering spirits known as Hagay in a dream, debuts on the Tate Trendy March 13–15. Pam Tanowitz premieres Neither Drums nor Trumpets, a piece drawing on the storied historical past of the Royal Opera Home and carried out in its ethereal Paul Hamlyn Corridor, March 25–26. Jules Cunningham alights at Sadler’s Wells East March 27–28 with two premieres of their very own: CROW, a reimagining of a duet carried out by Julius Eastman and Pauline Oliveros almost 50 years in the past in New York Metropolis, and Pigeons, which attracts on pigeon groupings and conduct to query methods of being alone and collectively, set to Eastman’s Homosexual Guerilla. Additional choices embrace works by George Balanchine, Trisha Brown, and Merce Cunningham, in addition to a slew of European corporations and artists, plus workshops for each professionals and nondancer viewers members. March 12–April 8. dancereflections-vancleefarpels.com. —Courtney Escoyne
Step by Step
PHILADELPHIA That includes dancers steeped in regional road kinds from throughout the U.S., Rennie Harris’ American Avenue Dancer celebrates the outsized affect of hip hop on the humanities world. Philadelphia’s Rennie Harris Puremovement is joined by Michael Manson and his Home of Jit, from Detroit, and Chicago footwork specialists Creation International led by King Charles, in addition to DJ Razor Ramon. The work is ready to premiere March 14–15 at Penn Reside Arts, the place Harris is at present the artist in residence. pennlivearts.org. —CE
A Harmful Disco
NEW YORK CITY Lisa Fagan and Lena Engelstein descend upon New York Reside Arts to premiere their newest dance theater work. Set in 1976, Friday Night time Rat Catchers begins with contestants dancing beneath a shimmering disco ball, just for the celebration to come back to a screeching halt after their sport is reconfigured and hunks of cement puncture the dancehall’s blissful bubble. Who, if anybody, comes out on high? March 27–29. newyorklivearts.org. —CE
Previous and Current
SAN FRANCISCO In A Bridge to Now / Un Puente hacia el Presente, collaborators Lenora Lee and Moyra Silva Rodríguez excavate the histories of Chinese language immigrants to the U.S. and Peru. Knowledgeable by interviews with the descendants of Chinese language indentured servants in each international locations, which increase Tatsu Aoki and Francis Wong’s sound rating, the multimedia work interrogates the legacies and scars left by the pairing of labor exploitation and anti-immigrant sentiment on these communities, whereas additionally honoring their perseverance and cultural contributions. After premiering in Peru final fall, the work receives its U.S. premiere at Dance Mission Theater March 28–30. lenoraleedance.com. —CE
Regency Street Journey
SAN DIEGO Regency Women follows a younger, single lady in Nineteenth-century England as she goes on a life-changing highway journey along with her three greatest buddies to search for assist after realizing she’s pregnant and dealing with social break. The brand new musical comedy, directed and choreographed by Josh Rhodes, runs at San Diego’s Outdated Globe April 2–Might 4. theoldglobe.org. —CE
Bringing It Again
NEW YORK CITY In The Reclamation, choreographer Reggie Wilson returns to the concepts underpinning his early work, investigating their gestural motion vocabularies and the brand new questions they elevate in a seek for a manner by way of at this time’s frenetic occasions. Fist and Heel Efficiency Group premieres the work at NYU Skirball April 4–5. nyuskirball.org. —CE
Getting Jazzy
SAN FRANCISCO Sidra Bell creates her first work for ODC/Dance to music (carried out reside) by avant-garde jazz composer Mary Halvorson, premiering as a part of the corporate’s Dance Downtown program at Yerba Buena Heart for the Arts. Inventive director Brenda Method’s Unintended Penalties (A Meditation) and affiliate choreographer Kimi Okada’s Inkwell spherical out this system. Plus, an excerpt from Method’s After the Deluge, a response to the impacts of local weather change slated to debut subsequent 12 months, will likely be proven throughout the firm’s April 11 gala efficiency. April 10–13. odc.dance. —CE
Acquainted and Unfamiliar
SALT LAKE CITY For its RE-ACT program, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Firm premieres two new works: one by inventive director Daniel Charon, in collaboration with director and dramaturg Alexandra Harbold, and the opposite by Atlanta-based dancemaker Annalee Traylor, the corporate’s inaugural Choreographic Canvas commissioned artist. April 17–19. ririewoodbury.com. —CE
Taking Goal
NEW YORK CITY A.I.M by Kyle Abraham returns to The Joyce Theater with a premiere by the corporate’s founder (his first collaboration with composer Shelley Washington), latest works by Andrea Miller (YEAR) and Rena Butler (Shell of A Shell of The Shell), and Paul Singh’s Simply Your Two Wrists, with the David Lang rating performed reside by Trio Mediæval. April 22–27. joyce.org. —CE
