Our performance picks for March and April cover an intriguing couple of months in the concert dance scene—including the debut of one company, the final shows of another, and over half a dozen highly-anticipated premieres.

When Sara Mearns was a young dancer with New York City Ballet, she says, she kept finding herself in a certain kind of role: “big dancing, dramatic, romantic, emotional.” It took her late coach Susan Hendl to imagine her in something different, casting Mearns in Jerome Robbins’ Dances at a Gathering. “She was the first […]

Summer dance festival season is heating up across the country—and the pond.

From new works to old traditions, here are four performances we have on our radar. Lost With You Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal’s Vanishing MélodiesSasha Onyshchenko, Courtesy BJM MONTREAL Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal plumbs the songbook of Patrick Watson for its latest creation. Vanishing Mélodies brings to life the memories of a lone woman waiting for a bus, […]

Ballet can distance us from performers. The difficulty of the technique and the elusive artistry can make them seem immortal. But in New York City Center’s Studio 5 Great American Ballerina series, we observe them as down-to-earth and hard-working—willing, by dint of the format, to take criticism and incorporate it, live. And for those viewers […]

Sara Mearns is usually everywhere. If she’s not dancing with her home company, New York City Ballet, she’s working on musical theater projects with her husband Joshua Bergasse, commissioning work from downtown choreographers, embodying modern masters like Cunningham and Duncan, collaborating with hip-hop artists or guesting at the opera. And when she’s not dancing, she’s […]

What a night. The Dance Magazine Awards yesterday at the Ailey Citigroup Theater was jam-packed with love for dance. From legendary icons to early-career choreographers we can’t stop obsessing over, the Dance Magazine Awards, presented by the Dance Media Foundation, recognized a wide spectrum of our field. And with more performances than ever before, the […]

Sara Mearns is a force. There is a monumentality to her dancing that was apparent even as a young corps member of 19, cast in her first Swan Lake with New York City Ballet. She threw herself into the role heart and soul, stretching each shape to the limit, trusting the music to carry her […]