Garth Fagan’s musical choices are ever eclectic and surprising. The acclaimed choreographer has collaborated with Wynton Marsalis on several occasions, and has been known to turn to other jazz composers as well. But he is just as likely to turn to Brahms or Dvorak, or composers of various nationalities, past and present. When his Rochester-based troupe returns to the Joyce next week, he will unveil his newest work, set to selections by various Chinese-American composers. Read more

Over six years, Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet has quickly established itself as a feisty, independent addition to the city’s dance scene. From the unheard-of luxury of its own comfortable studio and theater space on West 26th Street, to the European choreographers whose work has formed the basis of its idiosyncratic repertory, this company definitely marches to its own drummer. Read more

“I’m the newbie on this program,” Aszure Barton happily admits, referring to her ballet One of Three, which is part of American Ballet Theatre’s program of premieres this week. Both of her fellow choreographers, Alexei Ratmansky and Benjamin Millepied, have made works for ABT (as well as for New York City Ballet) before. But for Barton, a New York-based Canadian whose fresh, inventive works have been increasingly in demand hither and yon, this ballet represents her introduction to ABT. Read more

The performance equivalent of channel surfing, the 92nd Street Y presents over 50 choreographers over two days. Each onehour block includes five choreographers, which means you won’t be stuck with one for more than 10 minutes. Among the standouts are John Jasperse (3 o’clock on Saturday) and Douglass Dunn (3 o’clock on Sunday). Read more Read it in print

Because their latest work for Big Dance Theater was co-commissioned by the French Institute/Alliance Français and Les Subsistances in Lyon, co-directors Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar began exploring possible French source material. They gravitated to the influential films of the Nouvelle Vague, but instead of renting DVDs, they read the screenplays. They made that their focus, Parson explained recently, “because I felt that stylistically, the films are so powerful visually that there would be no place for me in it. So I wanted some vestige or artifact from that period.” Read more

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Lucy Guerin spent much of the 1990s performing and choreographing in New York, before returning to her native Australia. Now we only get to see her work sporadically, and it has been six years she her company last appeared here. The impression left by that 2003 program, at Dance Theater Workshop, was of a choreographer in rigorous control of her material, creating beautifully focused, powerfully evocative works. Read more

Sometimes the word “festival” is tossed around too loosely, but Fall for Dance, City Center’s invigorating celebration of all forms of dance now in its sixth year, more than merits the term. Opening with Savion Glover and Paul Taylor, winding up with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre performing Revelations—with Mark Morris, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, New York City Ballet and Morphoses among those included along the way—this two-week event is as festive as they come. Read more

It’s a bold and promising idea: take a Pulitzer prize-winning Steve Reich score, and offer two interesting and highly contrasting young choreographers the opportunity to create new dances to it. It’s the kind of adventurous, artist-nurturing programming that the Guggenheim’s Works and Process series includes amid its more traditional behind-the-scenes-with-the-artists events. This week, it has really come up with a lively group of collaborators. Both Larry Keigwin and Peter Quanz have been commissioned to choreograph a premiere to Reich’s “Double Sextet.” Read more

Meticulously analytical movement posited as metaphysical questions is a hallmark of Pierre Rigal’s solos. When the dancer/choreographer made his local debut two years ago at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, he painstakingly charted the transition from horizontal to vertical movement. It was like a condensed history of evolution, with a coda that looked toward the future, as video effects turned his body into a living hologram. Read more