Janice Berman

The Festival Jérôme Bel demonstrated new ways we can think across the boundaries of artist and non-artist, performer and spectator, in refreshingly fun shows at Stanford.

As far as galas go, the one at Ballet San Jose welcoming the new Artistic Director spoke well for the company’s future.

José Manuel Carreño, the new artistic director of Ballet San Jose, has a vision for the company that is globe-hopping and local, contemporary and neo-classical; a refreshed troupe that will hold its own near and far.

The Butterfly Lovers, distinctively Chinese by design and beautiful to look at, reveals the strengths and weaknesses inherent in this east/west mash-up.

Alonzo King Lines Ballet performs two works, one of which is inspired through line, poetry, and writing; all incorporated into the choreography.

A visit from the Nederland Dans Theater, ecstatically received on opening night, featured dancers that can handle any style, mood or mode, even in pursuit of the same theme — memory and regret — in each of two ballets.

In the centennial year of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, comes the new, perplexing and engaging dance/theater piece A Rite.

Yulan, perhaps best described as a Chinese-style Cirque du Soleil, is a brilliantly colored, imaginative extravaganza starring the Dalian Acrobatic Troupe.

The program XXTremes, which opened the Smuin Ballet's season, journeyed across varied landscape and had a good time doing so.

A review of the live-streamed show of the Joe Goode Performance Group’s newest dance/theater work, Hush, performed live through Sunday at Z Space.