Friday, April 4, 2025

Dance Performances To not be Missed This October

New story ballets, a landmark revival, works that take to the sky or descend into the earth—the autumn efficiency season goes full pace forward as we transfer into October. Right here’s what has us most intrigued.

A Trilogy Concludes

In a rehearsal studio, eight male dancers cluster together and connect, staring down at a female dancer scooting back from them on the floor.
Birmingham Royal Ballet rehearsing Iratxe Ansa’s contribution to Luna. Photograph by Katja Ogrin, courtesy Birmingham Royal Ballet.

BIRMINGHAM, UK  Birmingham Royal Ballet’s trilogy of works celebrating the corporate’s hometown involves an in depth with Luna, a brand new ballet impressed by the pioneering ladies of Birmingham. The all-female inventive crew consists of choreographers Iratxe Ansa, Wubkje Kuindersma, Seeta Patel, Arielle Smith, and Thaís Suárez, in addition to the composer Kate Whitley. How will this various ensemble, introduced in by director Carlos Acosta to complete the trilogy he conceived, collaborate to create a cohesive work, and what (feminist?) messages will they select to convey? Luna premieres Oct. 3–5 on the Birmingham Hippodrome earlier than touring to London’s Sadler’s Wells Oct. 22–23. brb.org.uk. —Emily Might

Resistance Takes Flight

A dancer in a bright yellow dress and sneakers perches in a window frame. She grips the railing of the fire escape while throwing her head up and back.
Flyaway Productions’ Jhia Jackson in Ode to Jane. Photograph by Brechin Flournoy, courtesy John Hill PR.

SAN FRANCISCO  Named for the pre–Roe v. Wade abortion community, Jo Kreiter’s Ode to Jane explores what resistance can appear to be right now with reproductive well being care below assault. Seven aerial artists of Flyaway Productions carry out the work, set to an authentic rating by Xoa Asa, on the hearth escapes and partitions of the Tenderloin district’s Cadillac Resort. Oct. 4–12. flyawayproductions.com. —Courtney Escoyne

Celebrating an Elder

A performer in a painted Indigenous mask and matching robe in profile. One hand is upraised, the other parallel to the floor.
Dancers of Damelahamid’s Raven Mom. Photograph by Chris Randle, courtesy Murray Paterson Advertising and marketing Group.

VANCOUVER  Indigenous dance group Dancers of Damelahamid honors the life and legacy of the late Elder Margaret Harris,­ a co-founder of the corporate, with the premiere of Raven Mom. The evening-length, multimedia work illustrates the breadth of her affect as a brand new era carries the corporate’s imaginative and prescient into the long run. Oct. 9–12. thecultch.com. —CE

Down within the Grime

A half dozen dancers lie in a line in a pile of dirt, rolling onto their left sides.
Black Label Motion in Battleground. Photograph by Invoice Cameron, courtesy American Dance Competition.

DURHAM, NC  What impacts do perpetual violence and struggle have on the physique? In Carl Flink’s Battleground, Black Label Motion investigates the query by way of motion and abstraction whereas performing in a specifically created 30-by-25–foot dust pit, aiming to encourage dialogue about violence’s accepted­ and infrequently celebrated position in right now’s society. Oct. 11–13. americandancefestival.org. —CE

A Psych Thriller for ABT

Cassandra Trenary faces away from the camera, holding her wrist up to shoulder height and gazing at it. Cathy Marston stands nearby, watching.
American Ballet Theatre’s Cassandra Trenary and Helen Pickett rehearsing Crime and Punishment. Photograph by Emma Zordan, courtesy ABT.

NEW YORK CITY  Literature buff Helen Pickett brings Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s 1866 psychological thriller Crime and Punishment to the American Ballet Theatre stage. When, in a twisted social experiment, ex–legislation scholar Raskolnikov kills a crooked pawn dealer and her bystander half-sister, he’s beset by irreconcilable guilt. Inserting the emphasis squarely on humanity and its tangled nature, Pickett and co-director James Bonas have made the ballet’s tortured protagonist a task that may be carried out by dancers of any gender; each women and men are slated to bop it throughout its premiere week. Crime and Punishment debuts on Oct. 30 as a part of ABT’s fall season, which additionally consists of the premiere of latest commissions by Kyle Abraham and Gemma Bond. Oct. 16–Nov. 3. abt.org. —Kyra Laubacher

Dance of the Lifeless

Maria Konrad crouches to one side and reaches out a hand toward two dancers rehearsing. A woman in pointe shoes poses angularly as a male dancer reaches an arm through the negative space she creates.
Maria Konrad main rehearsal at Nashville Ballet. Photograph by Skyler Poiley, courtesy Nashville Ballet.

NASHVILLE  Drawing inspiration from the artwork of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, Maria Konrad’s new Dia de los Muertos ballet brings the normal Mexican celebration of deceased family members to Nashville Ballet. Oct. 17–20. nashvilleballet.com. —CE

A New Chapter Unfolds

A Black male dancer is caught mid-leap, one leg extended side and the other tucked up beneath him. He looked up and reaches toward the lights over the bare stage.
Saint Louis Dance Theatre’s Keenan Fletcher. Photograph by Pratt + Kreidich, courtesy Saint Louis Dance Theatre.

ST. LOUIS  The lately rechristened Saint Louis Dance Theatre (previously Huge Muddy Dance Firm) opens its season with (RE)Declare, a program that includes new works by Jamar Roberts and creative director Kirven Douthit-Boyd, the corporate premieres of Robert Battle’s Unfold and José Limón’s Chaconne, and returning works by Omar Román de Jesús and Douthit-Boyd. Oct. 24–27. saintlouisdancetheatre.org. —CE

Confronting Mortality

Nine dancers in red form spokes reaching toward the center of the space, those on the outside reaching away. Black and white images of individual's faces are projected on the back scrim.
The 1994 manufacturing of Nonetheless/Right here. Photograph by David Smith, courtesy New York Stay Arts.

NEW YORK CITY  Created in the course of the AIDS epidemic, Invoice T. Jones’ Nonetheless/Right here was a controversial work when it premiered in 1994, largely as a result of it utilized the phrases, gestures, and pictures of individuals from throughout the U.S. dwelling with terminal diagnoses who participated in broadly publicized “survival workshops” run by Jones. Now, it returns to Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Subsequent Wave pageant 30 years later, a contemplation of mortality that can maybe have elevated resonance for audiences which have skilled an ongoing international pandemic. Oct. 30–Nov. 2. bam.org. —CE

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