From major tours to noteworthy premieres to Hollywood-inspired musicals (and one movie musical), here are 28 shows on our contributors’ must-see lists.

Unexpected collaborations, women-led ballets, superstar choreographers turning their talents to opera and musical theater, singular dancemakers wrestling with issues of labor, environmental justice, and more—here’s what our contributors are looking forward to most as the 2023–24 season gets underway.

American Dance Machine for the 21st Century’s latest release is “Our Favorite Son,” from the Tony-winning musical The Will Rogers Follies. The film features both the show-stopping number, choreographed by Tommy Tune (with Jeff Calhoun as associate choreographer), and interviews with cast members. It was directed by Joshua Bergasse and conceived by ADM21 founder Nikki […]

This month, Massachusetts’ Barrington Stage Company premieres A Crossing, a tale of migrants coming over the southern U.S. border. It’s being billed as a dance musical, which, for Joshua Bergasse, who co-conceived, directed and choreographed the work, feels right. “It’s a traditional musical in that we have songs, but we’re telling so much of the […]

While tapping to Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Dario Natarelli finds a way to make something we have all heard before sound new. His choreography alternately matches the rhythmic cadence of King’s words and honors the meaningful pauses between them. Watching the masterful control he has over his footwork and dynamics, […]

Karen Azenberg, a past president of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, stumbled on something peculiar before the union’s 2015 move to new offices: a 52-year-old sealed envelope with a handwritten note attached. It was from Agnes de Mille, the groundbreaking choreographer of Oklahoma! and Rodeo. De Mille, a founding member of SDC, had sealed […]

It was only a matter of time before dance super couple Sara Mearns and Joshua Bergasse did a major project together. After all, the newlyweds first met when Mearns, a New York City Ballet star, was being considered for a part on the TV show “Smash,” which Bergasse was choreographing. They hit it off, but […]

A feast of Forsythe, a surfeit of Dorrance Dance, a challenge to how we perceive refugees. Our editors’ performance picks this month run the gamut. Boston’s Mixtape Master BOSTON Halfway into his five-year partnership with Boston Ballet, William Forsythe is gifting East Coast audiences with his first new work for an American company since 1992. […]