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Dance
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Dance Preview: SPECTACULAR BALANCHINE! (American Contemporary Ballet / Los Angeles)
WHEN BALLET BECAME AMERICAN American Contemporary Ballet celebrates the choreographer who traded princes and swans for jazz, swagger, and pure fun Before George Balanchine arrived in America, ballet belonged largely to princes, princesses, fairy tales, and European courts. Within a generation, he transformed it into something unmistakably American. Balanchine understood that Americans moved differently. They…
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Theater Review: MJ THE MUSICAL (National Tour / San Diego)
MAN IN THE MIRROR, SHOW ON FIRE A dazzling tour delivers the spectacle and the moves, even if the storytelling stays surface-level The national touring production of MJ the Musical is completing its short run at the Civic Theatre through May 10. The show portrays episodes from the life and career of Michael Jackson and…
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Dance Review: GISELLE (Los Angeles Ballet)
LOVE, BETRAYAL, AND GHOSTS IN A LUSH GISELLE Los Angeles Ballet delivers a visually rich and emotionally satisfying take on the Romantic classic. Los Angeles Ballet (LAB) closes its 20th Anniversary Season with a milestone: its first appearance at the Ahmanson Theatre, presenting the ghostly Romantic classic Giselle. Founded in 2006 with the goal of…
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Theater Review: SHADES AND SHADOWS (Back with Two Beasts / Magic Theatre / San Francisco)
LOOKING BACK AT A LOOK-BACK A fresh perspective on one of mythology’s most famous mistakes Last night, The Back with Two Beasts company premiered a new show at San Francisco’s Magic Theatre: Shades and Shadows by Bay Area playwright William Brasse. Combining spoken drama, music, and interpretive movement, the production explores the Greek myth of Orpheus…
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Dance Review: MERE MORTALS (SF Ballet)
PANDORA GOES DIGITAL A visually striking ballet where myth, machines, and modern anxiety collide San Francisco Ballet closes out its 2025–2026 season with Mere Mortals, a contemporary ballet choreographed by Aszure Barton with music by Floating Points. It’s a modern-day spin on the Greek myth of Pandora’s Box. Despite being warned about the consequences, Pandora…
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Dance Review: LA SYLPHIDE (San Francisco Ballet)
A SCOTTISH FANTASY TAKES FLIGHT A Romantic ballet classic that still enchants This month, San Francisco Ballet is performing the Danish Romantic classic La Sylphide. This revival was first performed in 1836 in Denmark. Choreographed by August Bournonville, and set in the Scottish Highlands, it is the story of the Sylph, a mysterious, ethereal creature…
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Dance Preview: PARSONS DANCE (BroadStage, Santa Monica)
HIGH VOLTAGE DANCE, NO SAFETY NET A company built on athleticism, musicality, and sheer momentum returns to BroadStage Few choreographers have maintained the kind of sustained, high-energy appeal that David Parsons has cultivated since breaking out as a star dancer with the Paul Taylor Dance Company in the late 1970s. After founding Parsons Dance in…
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Dance Review: SCORCHED EARTH (St. Ann’s Warehouse, Brooklyn)
LAND, LABOR, AND THE BODY Luke Murphy’s dance-theatre work turns ownership into something visceral and urgent St. Ann’s Warehouse unveils Scorched Earth, a striking dance-theatre work from Attic Projects, written, directed, and choreographed by the singularly inventive Luke Murphy. From the team behind Volcano, a dance I reviewed three years ago and will never forget,…
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THE LINK BETWEEN MOVEMENT, MOOD, AND BETTER DECISION-MAKING
Your best decisions rarely happen when you’re tired, stiff, and stressed. They happen when your body feels good. This is not a wellness slogan. It is a performance advantage. Movement changes how you think. It changes how you feel. It changes how you decide. A growing body of research backs this up. Regular physical activity…
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Dance Review: SYLVIA (American Ballet Theatre at Segerstrom Center)
DELIBES TAKES THE LEAD In ABT’s return of Ashton’s Sylvia, the best performance at Segerstrom wasn’t onstage Frederic Ashton’s Sylvia arrives at Segerstrom Center for the Arts after nine years away from American Ballet Theatre’s repertory, with the Pacific Symphony in the pit. Start there. Ormsby Wilkins conducted, and he set the terms of the…
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Dance Review: HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO PROGRAM A (The Joyce Theater, NYC)
THREE STYLES, ONE ELECTRIFYING COMPANY A vibrant program that moves effortlessly from sensual modernism to jazzy precision to kinetic abstraction Hubbard Street Dance Chicago returns to The Joyce Theater, bringing the springtime vibes we have all been craving. I caught Program A, and I can assure you it is a full-on, can’t-take-your-eyes-off-it showcase of movement…
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Dance Review: ALVIN AILEY DANCE COMPANY (In Residence at the Music Center; Program B)
The Music Center’s exhilarating 2025–2026 Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at The Music Center season includes the beloved Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater which continued its exclusive Southern California multi-year residency with The Music Center with seven stupendous performances in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion this weekend, March 25-29, 2026. This review covers the selections presented as Program B on…
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Dance Review: BALANCHINE: TWIN MASTERPIECES (American Contemporary Ballet)
BAD MOOD? BALANCHINE WILL FIX THAT American Contemporary Ballet’s twin masterpieces turn live strings into a reset button for the soul Two string duos. Two ballets. Both pairs similar in structure and running time, but containing glimpses of unlimited invention within fixed limitations. For their spring program, American Contemporary Ballet performs two works from George…
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Dance Preview: JOFFREY BALLET’S 16TH ANNUAL WINNING WORKS (Museum of Contemporary Art)
FIVE CHOREOGRAPHERS, FIVE PREMIERES Winning Works gives emerging dancemakers a coveted professional stage—and a glimpse of dance’s next generation The Joffrey Ballet’s Winning Works initiative has quietly become one of the most influential launching pads for emerging choreographers in American dance. Now in its 16th year, the program returns to Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art…
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Dance Preview: STILL/HERE (Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company on Tour at Royce Hall)
STILL HERE, STILL ESSENTIAL The tour of Bill T. Jones’s landmark dance comes to Royce Hall with undiminished force The first time I saw Still/Here, it was at BAM. It was 1994, the year of Stonewall’s 25th Anniversary and The Gay Games in NYC. So, yes, there was celebrating, but the AIDS epidemic was still…
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Dance Review: AMERICAN ICONS (Joffrey Ballet)
A legacy program celebrating Joffrey’s founders while showcasing the company’s present vitality A richly performed evening where history fuels a thrilling, forward-looking repertory Preternaturally spry and acutely seasoned may be good ways to describe Joffrey Ballet Chicago these days—at least based on the company’s Spring program, American Icons, now in performance at the Lyric and…
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Dance Review: EUGENE ONEGIN (San Francisco Ballet World Premiere)
A PUSHKIN ROMANCE REIMAGINED THROUGH DANCE A handsome and emotionally direct adaptation that prioritizes storytelling and visual appeal San Francisco Ballet opens its 2026 repertory season with the world premiere of Eugene Onegin, choreographed by Resident Choreographer Yuri Possokhov and based on Alexander Pushkin’s 1833 novel. The story, perhaps best known through Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s…
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Dance Review: GRAHAM100 (Martha Graham Dance Company at The Auditorium Theatre, Chicago)
About midway through Martha Graham’s powerful Chronicle, performed last Saturday at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago, I realized that the elevated platform at center stage was not just a platform but a highly stylized Olympic podium. It’s an important distinction. In 1936, Graham had been invited to participate in the Berlin Olympics, hosted under the…
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Dance Preview: GRAHAM100 (Martha Graham Dance Company International Tour in Chicago)
GRAHAM’S DANCE DYNASTY DESCENDS ON THE AUDITORIUM THEATRE Martha Graham Dance Company pairs signature works with a Bernstein-inspired Chicago premiere. On January 24, The Auditorium Theatre will host the living legacy of a pioneering genius. As part of its celebratory 100th anniversary international tour, the Martha Graham Dance Company will commemorate this unmatched milestone with…
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Dance Review: CHRISTOPHER WHEELDON’S NUTCRACKER (The Joffrey Ballet at Lyric Opera House)
A FAIRYTALE REBORN ON THE SOUTH SIDE Wheeldon’s Chicago-set Nutcracker still casts a decade-long spell Ten years in, Pyotr Tchaikovsky and the World’s Columbian Exposition are still a match made in ballet heaven. It’s December 24, 1892, in Jackson Park, a working-class neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. A young girl (Amanda Assucena), accompanied by her…
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