In case you haven’t yet let go of the relaxed cultural pace of summer, the arrival of the Crossing the Line Festival will shake you out of any lingering torpor with a vengeance. This ambitious annual presentation by the French Institute Alliance Francaise (FIAF) boldly crosses boundaries—geographical, disciplinary and otherwise—and can be counted on to present adventurous, provocative and unexpected works. more

On the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, there will be dancing from morning till evening in response to that tragedy and its lasting effects. All of it will be outdoors and free of charge, as several choreographers offer meditative, solemn or quietly uplifting works in settings where a maximum number of people can experience them. more

For Mark Morris’ dancers, it’s first and foremost about the music, and his company’s Mostly Mozart Festival performances this week offer a typically intriguing mix of scores. Two were written a few years apart by seminal 20th-century composers—Stravinsky and Satie—while the third dates from a century earlier, the musical era usually associated with the festival. None are by Mozart, and none require a full orchestra, so the music will be performed by vocalists and instrumentalists from the MMDG Music Ensemble rather than the festival’s orchestra. more

Larry Keigwin is bouncing between interviews during a press event in the subterranean lobby of New World Stages, just before the opening of the new Off-Broadway revival of Rent, which he is choreographing. It’s not a scene he’s ever experienced in the contemporary dance world in which he usually works. A publicist introduces him to one theater website’s writer, gives them some time, then leads him to the next waiting tape recorder. But this has been a year in which the inventive, prolific choreographer—whose work can be witty, sexy, fashion-conscious and full of attitude while also being haunting—adds musical theater to his résumé. more

What began in 1971 as Oberlin Dance Collective—an energized, innovative, post-1960s group of dancers and musicians—headed west to San Francisco five years later and has since become a pivotal and influential mainstay of that city’s vibrant dance scene. Soon renamed ODC/Dance, this 10-member ensemble has, since its inception, featured the choreography of three women: Brenda Way, KT Nelson and Kimi Okada. This dynamic artistic triumvirate remains at the helm today, even as the enterprise has greatly expanded and diversified. more

For those of us who were around when Pilobolus—an ensemble of imaginative collegiate free spirits founded at Dartmouth who explored the possibilities of linked bodies in clever, often sexy ways—was new on the scene, it’s hard to accept that this feisty ensemble is now middle-aged. But the troupe has hit the ripe age of 40. The one-time renegade bunch now proudly identifies itself in a program note as “a stable and influential force in the world of dance.” more

The haunting, riveting performance works of Eiko & Koma have been among the New York dance scene’s most fascinating and unique events for 35 years. With their extreme slowness, these married dance collaborators distill movement to its essence and invite attentive focus on detail and nuance. Evoking a deep connection to elements of nature and the earth’s primordial forces, their dance works challenge audiences to let go of preconceived expectations about movement, and alter their approach to watching. more

The programming for this Saturday’s Merce Fair—no less than a dozen hours of overlapping and complementary presentations representing the vast body of work, and enormous influence, of the late Merce Cunningham—would no doubt have inspired a beaming smile from the late choreographer. This is the creative genius, after all, who late in life was presenting ever-more-intricate events that featured dances taking place on as many as five stages. On Saturday, this Lincoln Center Festival extravaganza will require eight different spaces within Frederick P. Rose Hall to encompass the dance and music performances, classes, films and videos, lectures, panel discussions, art exhibit, archival exhibition and participatory workshops that will have people absorbing his seminal ideas and impact from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. more

By all means, buy your tickets to the rich and international array of Lincoln Center Festival offerings that will keep theaters busy this month. But one of the festival’s highlights is available without charge and offers a unique experience nightly once darkness falls. Portraits in Dramatic Time, David Michalek’s latest outdoor video installation, projects brief performances by a wide array of theater artists on a vast screen on the façade of the David H. Koch Theater. Each individual or group “portrait” is a miniature in extreme slow motion, a momentary dramatic narrative of 10 to 15 seconds which Michalek has filmed using ultra high-speed, high-definition cameras, and shown in extreme slow motion so that the action lasts as long as 10 minutes. more

As American Ballet Theatre heads into the home stretch of its eight-week Metropolitan Opera House season, it offers two of the most consistently beloved and familiar 19th-century classics: Swan Lake (through July 2) and Sleeping Beauty (July 5–9). Both ballets are elevated into the realm of the sublime by their peerless Tchaikovsky scores, and each features a multi-faceted role for a ballerina. In Swan Lake—as filmgoers are now well aware, if they caught the lugubrious award-season favorite Black Swan—the lead female dancer has to portray two contrasting characters, switching gears between acts. The role of Princess Aurora, Sleeping Beauty’s heroine, demands the ultimate in pristine classical technique as well subtle evolution from the innocent wonder of a 16-year-old to the authority of an incipient monarch. more