“Don Quixote”
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, NY
July 7, 2026

Though it was promoted as a new production, Susan Jaffe’s new staging of “Don Quixote” for American Ballet Theatre proved to be more of a touch-up, and mostly in the wrong spots. It may have tied the ballet more closely to its titular character – something no one had really complained was missing over the last century – but Jaffe, working together with Susan Jones, missed

Program B: American Heartbeat - County and Western
"Home (Excerpt 1)", "Deck of Cards", "Home" (Excerpt 2"), "Songs that Tell a Story", "Home" (Excerpt 3)", "Going Away Party"
Program C: American Mavericks - West Coast Composers
"Prelude and Prelude", "Jenn and Spencer", "Pacific", "Grand Duo"
Mark Morris Dance Group
The Joyce Theater
New York, NY 
July 21, 2026 (Program C), July 23, 2026 (Program B)

Programs B and C of Mark Morris’s all-American music season had distinctly different approaches.

“Swan Lake”
American Ballet Theatre
The Metropolitan Opera House
New York, NY
June 19 and July 18 (matinee), 2026

Much has been written about the splendor of Chloe Misseldine's dancing in American Ballet Theatre's "Swan Lake" over the past couple of years, including the debut that led to her onstage promotion, but little of it prepares one for the nuance of the live experience. In her third season dancing the dual roles of Odette/Odile, Misseldine has refined

Program A: Soul of America--Jazz and Pop
"Pizzica", "Three Preludes", "Dancing Honeymoon", 'You've Got To Be Modernistc"
Mark Morris Dance Group
The Joyce Theater
New York, NY 
July 14, 2026

Mark Morris is honoring the American semisesquicentennial—a long word meaning 250th anniversary—with a long look at his works choreographed to American music.  The first of the three programs saluted earlier popular composers, primarily Louis Moreau Gottschalk (“Pizzica”), George Gershwin “Three Preludes”, and the early

"Sylvia"
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, NY
July 10, 2026 matinee and evening and July 11, 2026 matinee and evening

The high-class circus of “Don Quixote” week was followed by the stylish exaltation of Ashton’s “Sylvia”; both ballets are joyful explosions of dancing with large casts which allow ABT to show off its many dancers, but “Sylvia”, with its cohesive and coherent style is first-class art as well as first-class entertainment.  The

"Don Quixote"
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, NY
July 3, 2026

It was only July 3rd, but the audience seemed primed for an evening of fireworks when Jake Roxander made his highly anticipated complete “Don Quixote” debut—he had danced Act III in the all-hands-on-deck emergency “Don Quixote” the previous Wednesday.  The applause began during the overture (so great to hear Minkus getting his due for the wonderfully danceable score) and continued all

"Don Quixote"
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, NY
July 1, 2026, matinee

Cy Doherty first performed the Don in 2022 as an apprentice, creating a remarkably vivid picture, both comic and tragic, of a befuddled but sincere visionary searching for an ideal.  He was equally vivid in this performance, though the new production has turned the iconic dreamer into a silly old man who just wants a young wife.  The traditional ballet is about the

"MADDADDAM"
The National Ballet of Canada
Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts
Toronto, Canada
June 18, 2026 (evening)

The return of Wayne McGregor’s “MADDADDAM” 4 years after its world premiere was a welcome one. The complex work based on Margaret Atwood’s dystopian trilogy (“Oryx and Crake”, “The Year of the Flood” and “MaddAddam”) has many layers and rewards repeat viewings. There were not a lot of debuts during this run. Rather, dancers who created roles in 2022

"Don Quixote"
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, NY
June 29, 2026

ABT’s newish version of “Don Quixote”, overseen by Director Susan Jaffe and regisseur Susan Jones, uses the lovely 1978 sets by Santo Loquasto and most of the costumes, though the corps’ charming character shoes have been replaced by point shoes which meant that the corps’ Spanish flair in Act III lost the dynamic contrast with the more formal point work. Though the men have kept

"Onegin"
American Ballet Theatre
Metropolitan Opera House
New York, NY
June 27, 2026, evening

ABT’s final performance this season of John Cranko’s “Onegin” , based on the poem by Alexander Pushkin, was a feast of fine dancing, with Christine Shevchenko as Tatiana, Zimmi Cocker as her sister Olga, Jake Roxander as Lensky, and Jarod Curley debuting as the tortured Onegin.  This was a bitter-sweet debut, since the program was originally scheduled as Cory Stearns’ farewell before an

Lydia Johnson Dance
"Evening", "Legacy", "Ode", "Undercurrent"
New York Live Arts
New York, New York
June 19, 2026

Lydia Johnson Dance, a small company, was established in 1999 and dances the musically and emotionally complex works of its founder.  The company is ballet based but casual in outlook—arabesques are pure while arms swing, jumps are solid but low, and the women dance in practice shoes, showing the beauty and variety of demi-point.  There is nothing florid

"Mary, Queen of Scots”
Scottish Ballet
David H. Koch Theater
New York, NY
June 4, 2026

In a regrettably brief five-performance run, Scottish Ballet brought New York a work that was, above all else, generously inventive — a history play filtered through a dying mind, where fact and fever dream shared equal billing. While the life of Mary Stuart is not a topic of any kind of regular discussion in these lands, the love, care and detail with which the