Just as The Wizard of Oz to the United States or Pinocchio to Italy, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is the coming-of-age novel of English childhood. The reception of Christopher Wheeldon’s ballet of the same name depends heavily on this legacy.

Director and choreographer Naoya Homan’s reimagining of “Aleko,” a one-act ballet where art takes center stage, dazzles the eye with a tragic meditation on the limits of freedom.

In San Diego, a surprisingly robust number of ballet companies compete for a relatively small audience. While two such companies, City Ballet of San Diego and Golden State Ballet, present mixed repertoire programs, San Diego Ballet performs almost exclusively the work of director-choreographer Javier Velasco.

Julie Mehretu’s current exhibition at the Marian Goodman Gallery is astronomical. Our Days, Like a Shadow (a non-abiding hauntology) is a series of large, new, multicolored paintings that seem to float like planets, inviting viewers to walk around and in between them as if orbiting through a cosmic labyrinth.