NEW YORK CITY BALLET
After a two-week hiatus, City Ballet gets down to the serious business of its winter repertory season, which opens with Balanchine’s “Tombeau de Couperin” (Jan. 17), a work full of luminous symmetries and courtly manners. Another highlight is the return of Alexei Ratmansky’s “Russian Seasons” (Feb. 3), the choreographer’s first ballet for N.Y.C.B. (and still one of his best pieces), set to a song cycle by the contemporary composer Leonid Desyatnikov. The big event, however, is the company’s first evening wholly dedicated to the choreography of Christopher Wheeldon (Jan. 28). The roundup will include the spare, modernist “Polyphonia,” from 2001; “DGV: Danse à Grande Vitesse,” a snazzy, fast-paced showpiece made for the Royal Ballet in 2006; and a promising new ballet, set to Bizet’s “L’Arlesienne.” | Jan. 17 at 7:30: “The Steadfast Tin Soldier,” “Le Tombeau de Couperin,” “Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux,” and “Who Cares?” (David H. Koch, Lincoln Center. 212-870-5570. Through Feb. 26.)
COIL FESTIVAL
P.S. 122’s experimental festival is spread all over town this year. The entries include “Choreography for Blackboards,” in which the Viennese choreographer Michael Kliën has the performers draw with chalk. For “Too Shy to Stare,” Davis Freeman invites people to get their photographs taken before the program begins, so that the dancers can wear the faces of audience members as masks. (Through Jan. 14. For full schedule, visit ps122.org.)
AMERICAN REALNESS FESTIVAL
The boundary-pushing upstart festival is bigger than ever, and features performances this week by Jeremy Wade, Eleanor Bauer, Keith Hennessy, Ishmael Houston-Jones, and Yvonne Meier. (Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand St. 212-352-3101. Through Jan. 15. For full programming, visit henrystreet.org.)
PARSONS DANCE
David Parsons has a knack for combining clever lighting and appealing music with space-eating moves (performed by athletic, attractive dancers). All of these elements are present in his best-known piece, “Caught,” in which a dancer seems to hover in midair for minutes on end, thanks to the skillful use of strobe lights and a soaring electronic score. For the troupe’s annual two-week season at the Joyce, Parsons has created a new dance for the whole company, “Round My World,” with a lush soundscape produced by a digitally enhanced cello (composed and played by Zoe Keating). The other première, “A Stray’s Lullaby,” is by the emerging choreographer Kate Skarpetowska. Both programs contain popular works by Parsons, including “Caught.” (175 Eighth Ave., at 19th St. 212-242-0800. Jan. 11 and Jan. 17 at 7:30, Jan. 12-13 at 8, Jan. 14 at 2 and 8, and Jan. 15 at 1 and 5. Through Jan. 22.)
MEG STUART/DAMAGED GOODS
Born in New Orleans and trained in New York, Stuart has long been based in Europe. For her 2007 work “Blessed,” she sets up the Portuguese dancer Francisco Camacho in a cardboard paradise: hut, palm tree, outsized swan. Then she brings down a Katrina-inspired deluge. Waterlogged, the paradise proves flimsy and slowly falls apart, as much as the sweet-faced Camacho tries to pretend otherwise. (New York Live Arts, 219 W. 19th St. 212-924-0077. Jan. 12-14 at 7:30.)
LUCKY PLUSH PRODUCTIONS
Not many dances come with a works-cited list, but “Punk Yankees” does, and it adds up to around fifty entries. A sardonic commentary on appropriation in the age of YouTube, the show, by Chicago’s Lucky Plush Productions, could also serve as an identification exercise for dance aficionados. Can you recognize a swatch of Paul Taylor or a famous bit of Ohad Naharin? Do you see the Fosse in Beyoncé? Some of the works sampled and mashed up are lesser-known Chicago-centric pieces, but everyone can spot Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and the Electric Slide. (Joyce SoHo, 155 Mercer St. 212-242-0800. Jan. 13-14 at 7:30.)
MILLS/WORKS DANCE
This new company, founded by the former MOMIX dancer Joseph Mills, débuts with “Questions About Angels,” an evening-length work that explores qualities—lightness, purity, androgyny—associated with angelic beings. The piece, which Mills choreographed and designed for the occasion, places a strong emphasis on visuals: a solo in which a man seems to float just above the stage, encased in a large metal sculpture; a trio for three women enveloped in lengths of tulle; and a sensuous duet for two men, which explores the forbidden aspects of angel love. (Theatre for the New City, 155 First Ave., at 10th St. 212-254-1109. Jan. 13-14 at 8 and Jan. 15 at 3. Through Jan. 22.)
“WILL TO CREATE, WILL TO LIVE: THE CULTURE OF TEREZÍN”
As part of a weeklong series that explores the rich cultural legacies of Theresienstadt, the 92nd Street Y has invited two dance historians to discuss the Holocaust in the context of dance. Judith Chazin-Bennahum recently published a biography of the ballet impresario René Blum, the man who picked up the pieces of the Ballets Russes after the death of Diaghilev. (Blum died at Auschwitz in 1942.) Chazin-Bennahum will be joined by Judith Brin Ingber, whose cultural history “Seeing Israeli and Jewish Dance” covers everything from traditional folk dances to the current red-hot Israeli dance scene. (Lexington Ave. at 92nd St. 212-415-5500. Jan. 15 at 3.)
