Ann Haskins

Christmas decorations have decked the stores since Halloween, but for dance fans, the holiday season can’t begin until the curtain goes up on the first performance of The Nutcracker. Locally, that honor goes to Yvonne Mounsey’s Westside Ballet, which this weekend offers the 33rd edition of its charming production of......

Sankai Juku introduced Los Angeles audiences to the mesmerizing landscape of Japanese butoh dance as part of the 1984 Olympic Arts Festival with a breathtaking debut that sent suspended, white-powdered figures into a dangling descent down the front of the Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. In the intervening two decades,......

In a brisk five years, this celebration of local choreography has claimed a place in the front ranks of Southland modern-dance festivals. This year’s edition opened last weekend with two previews at the Santa Monica Pier and downtown L.A.’s Central Library. This weekend’s final free preview at Torrance’s Del Amo......

Even without the provocative title, this show by choreographer John Pennington and his relatively new troupe deserves attention from serious dance aficionados. Pennington Dance Group’s work in 2005 absolutely dominated this year’s Lester Horton Awards for excellence in local dance, winning not only for choreography and performance, but also in......

Francisco Martinez’s dances are as varied as his far-ranging interests, yet all reflect his deep affection for movement, music and the intriguing possibilities for combining the two. Among the scheduled works for this 25th-anniversary concert is the premiere of Thé Vert (Green Tea), backed by songs from an array of......

Die Grosse Fuge (Photo by Michael Cavalca)It may have opera in its title. It may have ballet in its name. This French company known for breaking all the rules returns to town, defying expectations about ballet and, well, breaking more rules. Ballet dancers must be bone-thin? Choreographer Maguy Marin puts......

Unquestionably one of the world’s great companies, and certainly the finest at preserving the classics, the Kirov Ballet arrives with two of the art form’s crown jewels. Next weekend is devoted to the perennial favorite, Swan Lake, but the opening gift is a rare chance to see Romeo and Juliet......

The fourth season of Dance at the Music Center opens with a bang — Canada’s audacious, reinvented Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Since Macedonian Gradimir Pankov assumed the artistic-director post in 2000, the company’s profile has morphed from a bastion of classical ballet......

The original title, Sweet Revenge of the Bat, sounded more like a sequel to the film Snakes on a Plane than a lighthearted ballet. Fortunately, the edited title, Sweet Revenge, more appropriately conveys the true nature of this delectable choreographic confection from artistic director John Castagna. Based on the opera......

Choreographers Regina Klenjoski and Monica Favand found a way around the dilemma of fitting music to their movement ideas: They commissioned their own original scores from composers Ron Bartlett, Charlie Campagna and Moira Smiley. Synergy, a joint concert by the Regina Klenjoski Dance Company and Favand’s TRIP Dance Theatre, features......