World-class review of ballet and dance.
This summer, hidden within the red brick warehouses and graffitied construction panels of industrial Bushwick, Brooklyn lay a secret garden. From late June into early August, the Bushwick-based Carvalho Gallery became an indoor marshland of lush green grasses, grey-brown reeds, and white and purple verbena.
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Ballet X gave a performance of “The Four Seasons Reimagined” on June 11, 2026, at Saratoga Performing Arts Center in a premiere week that began at its home base in Philadelphia’s Highmark Mann.
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Sprinkled throughout Liz Lerman’s most recent book, Shape and Momentum, are references to witches. They are our companions and guides, and they come bearing spells and poetry culled from Lerman’s 10-year choreographic project, “Wicked Bodies.”
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Scottish Ballet’s artistic director Christopher Hampson CBE has long been a champion of storytelling from a completely unique perspective. So too, with These Violent Delights: the first feature-length film from the company.
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The theme driving Misty Copeland’s curation of the Joyce Theater’s Ballet Festival was “to center Black, Brown, and Queer artists.”
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My first two shows at this year’s Dance Base as part of the Edinburgh Fringe show the consummate taste of artistic director Tony Mills. Two brilliant young companies from the Basque Country perform very different, but no less thrilling, work.
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When dance happens in non-traditional spaces, it can change the way it is seen and experienced. As Leonard Cohen said about the cracks in everything, “that’s where the light gets in.”
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“Ballet: the New Classic,” brainchild of fashion photographer Yumiko Inoue and K-Ballet Tokyo associate artist, Shohei Horiuchi, combines haute couture with innovative dance. Like sculpture in motion, it’s their third collaboration since creative director Inoue and producer and choreographer Horiuchi first realized their stylish vision in 2022.
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What should ballet look like? From the eight pieces that compose the first program of Misty Copeland’s curation for the Joyce Theater’s annual Ballet Festival, this much is clear: there’s no one single answer.
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Old and new generations intersect each other in the city of Venice. This is true for dance as well, which had the lagoon city as a picturesque backdrop this summer for the Biennale Danza, where poetry and intellectual excellence are still preserved in its artistic offerings, even under the siege of tourism.
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It starts with a tiny, barely noticed jerk of a hand or arm. Just one simple gesture, and then all hell breaks loose. TF Cia de Dança brings what has to be one of the most frenzied, sweaty pieces of dance to the Edinburgh Festival.
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Part of artistic director Tony Mills’ remit at Dance Base is to seek out wonderful dance artists from across the world. This year, two sets of performances from Detours Festival, Brussels have been specially selected by Mills to perform in Edinburgh.
PlusLong before the dancers take the stage, Dance Theatre of Harlem’s season at New York City Center feels like one of the most energizing cultural events of the spring.
PlusIt is rare for George Balanchine’s grand, bedazzled “Symphony in C” to open a program. Its champagne-popping finale for 52 dancers tends to be a nightcap.
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The Spring is Blooming festival, by Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels, now in its fifth year, has become a highlight of the spring dance circuit.
PlusAs the audience come to their feet at the end of this ballet there is a noted difference to be seen on stage. Three women stand with joined hands, taking their call as the romantic leads of a loud and proud lesbian ballet.
PlusOne of San Francisco Ballet’s greatest assets is its home venue, the Beaux-Arts style War Memorial Opera House, with four rings of seating that require performers to project their energies practically to the exosphere.
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