Photo by Daniel Trese

KTCHN dancers

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This week's dance events include speed dating musicians and dancers, the latest from Ryan Heffington and Los Angeles Ballet continues to paint the town Balanchine Red.

5. When musicians and choreographers date
The dancer/choreographers are familiar names from local, mostly modern dance companies including Stephanie Zaletel, Loretta Livingston, Carol McDowell, Rebecca Pappas, and Damon Rago. The musicians are Erik Leckrone, Eric Pham, Alan Shockley, Marty Walker, George Wheeler. In this two-part event curators Stephanie Nugent and Robin Cox first pair five choreographers with five composers with the "hook up" intended to create new and unlikely pairings to produce new works. In the second half, dubbed the "speed dating" round, each composer and choreographer gets a different pairing for an eight-minute collaboration session, during in which they will create a score. Then the audience gets to see the results. At Art Share LA, 801 E 4th Place dwntwn.; Sun., May 19, 8 p.m., $10-$20. www.iridianarts.com/page5/Iridian_Arts_payment_page.html

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Photo by Reed Hutchison

Los Angeles Ballet dancer Allynne Noelle in Rubies

This week's dance events include Los Angeles Ballet with Balanchine Festival Red, visitors from Canada, and a last chance to meet Heidi Duckler Dance Theatre at the Oasis.

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5. Painting the town Red

Three more Balanchine masterworks with music by Ravel and Stravinsky, film clips of Balanchine's Hollywood movie choreography, pre-performance discussions with a lineup of former New York City Ballet stars, L.A. dance critics and historians, and a roster of gorgeous dancers -- it's all part of the Los Angeles Ballet's Balanchine Red, the second half of its Balanchine Festival celebrating the most important and influential choreographer of the 20th century. Co-artistic directors Thordal Christensen and Colleen Neary's both danced with NYCB, and Balanchine personally selected Neary to stage his ballets. Go to LosAngelesBallet.org for information on the roster for each preperformance's Balanchine Talks as well as information and rehearsal clips of the three ballets, the atmospheric La Valse, the ever-cutting edge Agon and the sparkling, effervescent "Rubies" section of the full-length Jewels. After last week's opening in Redondo Beach, the festival continues at four other LAB's other home theaters in Long Beach, Northridge, Glendale and Westwood over the next weeks, making Balanchine a short drive for almost everyone. At the Carpenter Performing Arts Center, 6200 Atherton St., Long Beach; Sat., May 18, 7:30 p.m. Also at Valley Performing Arts Center, 1811 Nordhoff St., Northridge; Sat., May 25, 7:30 p.m. Also at the Alex Theatre, 216 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale; Sun., May 26, 2 p.m. Also at UCLA Royce Hall, 340 Royce Dr., Wstwd. Sun., June 9, 2 p.m., $24-$95. 310-937-6607 or www.losangelesballet.org.

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Gene Schiavone

Eifman Ballet in Rodin

This week's dance events include the return of Dance Camera West dance film festival and Eifman Ballet's sensual bio-ballet Rodin.

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5. A moving and movable Dance Film Fest
L.A.'s internationally recognized festival of dance on film, Dance Camera West, begins with this year's events moving among downtown's Music Center, West L.A.'s Getty Center, Santa Monica's Annenberg Beach House and mid-Wilshire's L.A. County Museum of Art. This year's theme Get Wet is carried out with a live performance involving a water feature at most venues prior to the screening of festival films. Parties on the opening and closing days as well as the screenings offer multiple chances to chat with the filmmakers. For a complete listing of events and venues go to www.dancecamerawest.org. At the Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave., dwntwn.; Thurs., May 2, 7 p.m.; $15; Reception at 9 p.m., $20; Also at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), 5905 Wilshire Blvd., mid-Wilshire; Fri., May 3, 3 p.m., 5 p.m.; 7:30 p.m., $15. 323-857-6000, www.lacma.org. Also at The Getty Museum, 1200 Getty Center Drive, W.L.A.; Sat., May 4, 4 p.m., free. 310-440-7330, www.getty.edu/museum/. Also at Annenberg Community Beach House, 415 Pacific Coast, Santa Monica; Sun., May 5, 5 p.m., $20 afternoon, panel discussion free with reservation. 310-458-4904, www.annenbergbeachhouse.com. For a complete listing of events, venues & tickets go to www.dancecamerawest.org.

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Photo: Michael Meseke

Traces.

This week's dance events include the arrival of nouveau circus Traces and the 6th Annual Pasadena Dance Festival wraps up.

5. Pasadena does festivals besides the Rose Parade
The week-long Pasadena Dance Festival peaks with a series of jam-packed shows. Up-and-coming dancemakers and their companies are showcased Friday including Chasen Dreamz, Datugan Dance Theatre, HD Movement Project, James Hansen Assemblage Dance, Kerrie Schroeder Pickup Company, LA Unbound, McNaughton/Navarrete Dance Ensemble, MODA Dance Collective, No Strings Attached Dance Company, Priolo Dance and Santa Ana College. Younger dancers take the stage at Saturday's matinee including Brockus Conservatory of Dance and Musical Theater, Compass Dance, Colburn School's Trudi Zipper, Flintridge Preparatory School, Idyllwild Arts Academy, Leverage Dance, Versa-Style Next Generation, and Vonder Haar Center for the Performing Arts. The 6th annual festival moves to the venerable Pasadena Civic Auditorium for the finale with an eclectic line-up that includes BPM beatsperminute, Blue13 Dance Company, F.Y.V Group, Luminario Ballet, SoleVita Dance Company, Terri Best Dance, The Underground, and festival host Lineage Dance Company. Bravo to Lineage Dance Company for organizing this 6th annual event and to the Pasadena Arts Council for funding it. For complete details and tickets go to www.pasadenadancefestival.org. At Lineage Performing Arts Center, 89 S. Fair Oaks Ave., Pasadena; Fri., April 26, 8 p.m.; Sat., April 26, 2 p.m.; $20 in advance, $25 at door. Also at Pasadena Civic Auditorium, 300 E. Green St., Pasadena; Sat., April 27, 8 p.m., $35 in advance, $40 at door. 626-793-2122, www.pasadenadancefestival.org.

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Photo by Paul Kolnik

Alvin Ailey dancers in Petite Mort

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This week's dance events include the return of the ever-popular Alvin American Dance Theater, dances about desire and a body to be discovered at UCLA

5. Alvin Ailey's new Battle plan

Defying the world of Photoshop, those beautiful, ripped bodies on banners announcing the return of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater are the real thing. The late Alvin Ailey created beautiful dances and nurtured his eponymous company, considered among the most popular dance troupes in America, if not the world. He also inspired the next generation of choreographers.

Ailey's work and his legacy are celebrated in three programs this AAADT visit. The opening program (repeated Sat. eve.), Ailey Spirit, offers Ronald K. Brown's Grace and Ohad Naharin's Minus 16, the latter incorporating elements of improvisation and audience participation. Classic Ailey (Fri. & Sat. mat.) serves up sections from Ailey's deep vault of dances. 21st Century Ailey (Sun.) showcases up-and-comer Kyle Abraham's Another Night, artistic director Robert Battle's Strange Humors and the company's local debut of Jiri Kylian's sensual masterwork Petite Mort. As the new artistic director (only the company's third), Battle continues the company tradition of closing shows with Ailey's Revelations. This trio of programs pays homage to the Ailey tradition, but also signals a Battle-plan to blaze new trails. At the Music Center Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., dwntwn.; Fri.-Sat., April 19-20, 7:30 p.m., Sat.-Sun., April 20-21, 2 p.m.; $28-$110. www.musiccenter.org.

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Photo courtesy of Regina Klenjoski Dance Company

Regina Klenjoski Dance Company at the 2nd L.A. Dance Festival

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This week's dance events include a locavore dance festival and two troupes on tour.

5. Locavore dance
In a season brimming with wonderful out of town companies dropping in for a bit of SoCal spring, but taking the ticket proceeds back to entertain their home audiences, L.A.'s own are bringing it all home with the second edition of the Los Angeles Dance Festival. Co-sponsored by Diavolo Dance Company and Brockus Dance Project, the Festival again fills a weekend with performances by 16 top notch companies along with open classes and discussions about what is distinctive about the participating troupes which range from contemporary to ballet to modern to aerial. Saturday's two performances include Ate9 dANCE cOMPANY, Lula Washington Dance Theatre, Luminario Ballet, Contemporary Modern Dance Cooperative, Ptero Dance Theater, Regina Klenjoski Dance Company, Clairobscur Dance Company and Invertigo Dance Theater. Sunday's two shows boast KIN Dance Company, Dance Body Dance, L.A. Contemporary Dance Company, Dorn Dance, motion/TRIBE, Pennington Dance Group, Kybele Dance Theater and Lula Washington Dance Theatre. A great chance to catch up with local troups, plus the ticket money stays here to fund shows to entertain in the months to come. Not enough room here to talk about all of them, but great info and links to the participating companies at www.ladancefest.org. At the Brewery Arts Complex, 616 Moulton Ave., Sat., April 13, 6 p.m. & 9 p.m.; Sun., April 14, 5 p.m. & 8 p.m.; $22 advance purchase, $30 at door, $40 advance purchase for both shows. www.ladancefest.org/LADanceFest.org/Tickets_and_Registration.html.

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Trisha Brown Dance Company

This week's dance events include a site specific performance on the Red Line and several events considering Trisha Brown's 50-year career.

6. Dance on the roof
A month-long celebration of New York choreographer Trisha Brown crests this weekend with two different performances at UCLA's Royce Hall plus outdoor performances, some free, at UCLA, the Hammer Museum and the Getty Center. Part of the 1960's post modern dance movement centered at New York's Judson Church, Brown's 50-year career defies easy categorization and explains why this Trisha Brown Retrospective Project involves so many different events. Long before Cirque du Soleil, Brown harnessed a dancer who bounced and twirled down the side of a building. That 1970 work, Man Walking Down the Side of a Building, is recreated Friday night at 6 p.m. with Bandaloop's Amelia Rudolph performing down the side of UCLA's art building. That free event precedes the first of two proscenium performances by Trisha Brown Dance Company at Royce Hall with four dances surveying Brown's deft eye for movement, wry humor and shifting concerns over five decades, what Brown calls her "cycles".

Saturday offers another free event, this time Brown's 1973 Roof Piece, with a dozen dancers playing a terpsichorean game of "telephone" on the rooftops of the Getty Center. Sunday offers another Royce Hall concert with four more dances and an ongoing installation continues daily at the Hammer. Brown, now 76, announced last month that she was withdrawing from leading her eponymous company, turning it over to two long-term associates. That announcement sadly injected an unintended literal meaning into this retrospective. For a complete listing of events go to www.cap.ucla.edu/tbdc/. At UCLA Broad Art Center, Wstwd.; Fri., April 5, 6 p.m., free; Also at UCLA Royce Hall, 340 Royce Dr., Wstwd.; Fri., April 5, 8 p.m.; Sun., April 7, 2 p.m.; $20-$55. www.cap.ucla.edu. Also at J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center, W.L.A.; Sat., April 6, 1 p.m. & 3 p.m.; free. www.getty.edu/museum. Also at UCLA Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Wstwd.; thru Sun., April 21, check for times, free. www.hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/detail/exhibition_id/233.

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Photo by Arianne MacBean

L.A. Contemporary Dance Company's Then. Now. Onward!

This week's dance includes L.A. Contemporary Dance Company with new works from three choreographers, plus Rennis Harris bringing street dance to the stage in RHAW.

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5. Three choreographers and a destination dancer
Sometimes the allure is the prospect of the latest from an intriguing choreographer and other times the attraction is just the chance to experience an extraordinary dancer. L.A. Contemporary Dance Company's Then. Now. Onward! boasts both. LACDC's repertory show is almost an excess of riches. Established choreographer Arianne MacBean, emerging dancemaker Lindsey Lollie and company artistic director Kate Hutter each contribute a new work for the company dancers, but the frosting on the cake is guest artist Charlie Hodges. A destination dancer for those in the know, Hodges danced with several ballet companies before making a major spash in Twyla Tharp's jukebox dance musicals Movin' Out, Times They Are a Changin' and his award-winning turn in Tharp's Sinatra show Come Fly Away. L.A. had a chance to be wowed most recently when he danced at Disney Hall with Benjamin Millepied's L.A. Dance Project (Hodges is both dancer and ballet master for that company). Hodges and Hutter dance Unravel, a duet the long-time friends collaborated on. Catch a preview of LACDC at lacontemporarydance.org/media. Much to like. Not to be missed. At Diavolo Dance Space, the Brewery, 616 Moulton Ave., dwntwn.; Thurs.-Sat., April 4-6, 8 p.m.; Sun., April 7, 7 p.m.; $20 online, $25 at door. www.onward.brownpaperticket.com.

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Photo by Reed Hutchinson

Los Angeles Ballet dancers Chelsea Paige Johnston and Zheng Hua Li in La Sonambula

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This week's dance events include four Balanchine ballets and the Tap Dance Kid grown up.

5.What an L.A. Times dance critic has to do to get onstage with the Los Angeles Ballet
After an electric opening in the South Bay, the Los Angeles Ballet moves to West L.A. tonight for the second of ten SoCal stops in its three-month Balanchine Festival. Arguably the most important and influential choreographer of the 20th century, George Balanchine was trained in Russia, established his choreographic talent in Europe and then moved to New York, where he established what became the New York City Ballet. That company seldom tours and only its major counterparts, including the Los Angeles Ballet, have the resources or permission to present Balanchine's ballets.

Los Angeles Ballet co-artistic directors Thordal Christensen and Colleen Neary both danced in the New York City Ballet, and Balanchine personally selected Neary to stage his ballets. Since Balanchine's death, Neary has continued to do so for her own and other companies, including the Bolshoi, Paris Opera Ballet and American Ballet Theater. This year, on the 30th anniversary of Balanchine's death, Los Angeles Ballet devotes its spring and summer seasons to seven of Balanchine's greatest ballets, divided into two programs (Gold and Red) presented at each of the company's five home theaters. The opening Gold program includes La Sonnambula, a one-act story ballet of love, jealousy, murder and a mysterious sleepwalker; Concerto Barocco, one of Balanchine's signature works, set to Bach's Concerto in D-minor for Two Violins; Tchaikovsky's Pas de Deux, a bravura duet set to the original music for the Black Swan Pas de deux; and Four Temperaments, with music Paul Hindemith composed at Balanchine's request.

Don't miss L.A. Times dance critic Lewis Segal hosting this week's 6 p.m. pre-performance Balanchine Talk. Segal interviews Neary and her sister Patricia Neary who also danced for Balanchine at NYCB and stages his ballets for the Balanchine Trust. At UCLA Royce Hall, Wstwd.; Sat., March 23, 7:30 p.m.; $24-$95. (310) 937-6607. www.losangelesballet.org.

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Photo by Danny Willems

Ultima Vez in What the Body Does Not Remember

This week's dance events include the Expulsion series scaling the heights of East L.A., and the revival of a game-changing show after 25 years.

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5. Blood on the dance floor
Choreographer-filmmaker Wim Vandekeybus was not the first to explore dance as extreme sport or use his dancers' bodies as emotional and physical battlefields. But in 1987, his What the Body Does Not Remember for the Belgium-based ensemble Ultima Vez kicked those concepts up so many notches it was dubbed "Eurocrash." A year later, the New York premiere of the show won the coveted Bessie Award for Vandekeybus and composers Thierry de Mey and Peter Vermeersch, setting a high bar for what would become known as hyperdance. Twenty-five years later, Vandekeybus has a new cast of dancers as Ultima Vez takes that watershed work on a world tour. Will the stylized combat, running, wrestling and groping of What the Body Does Not Remember look dated? Or has it just taken 25 years for the rest of the world to catch up? At Royce Hall, UCLA, 340 Royce Drive, Wstwd.; Fri.-Sat., March 15-16, 8 p.m.; $20-$55. http://cap.ucla.edu/index.asp.

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