The best summer dance performances

Artistic director Robert Battle continues to present Ailey classics, while introducing new choreography to the company repertory. As such, the season's program will include a new work created for the troupe by Robert Moses and a performance of a solo by Sierra Leone–born choreographer Asadata Dafora, as well as reprisals of Ronald K. Brown's delightful Grace, Hans van Manen's Polish Pieces and more. Classics will include Ailey's Night Creature, Pas de Duke, The River and—as always—Revelations.

The company—including dancers Roberto Bolle, Herman Cornejo, Marcelo Gomes, David Hallberg, Paloma Herrera, Julie Kent, Gillian Murphy, Veronika Part, Xiomara Reyes, Polina Semionova, Hee Seo, Daniil Simkin, Cory Stearns, Ivan Vasiliev, Diana Vishneva and the newest principal, James Whiteside—returns for its spring season. Many of the program highlights center on British choreography with the company premiere of Frederick Ashton's Cinderella, as well as a his The Dream (as part of a Shakespeare Celebration with Alexei Ratmansky's The Tempest) and and Kenneth MacMillan's Manon. The lineup also features Leonide Massine's Gaîté Parisienne and guest performers Alina Cojocaru, Maria Kochetkova and Denis Matvienko.

The company's spring season focuses on 21st-century choreographers, with selections by Mauro Bigonzetti, William Forsythe, Peter Martins, Benjamin Millepied, Justin Peck, Angelin Preljocaj, Alexei Ratmansky, Liam Scarlett, Richard Tanner and Christopher Wheeldon. As balance, entire programs are also dedicated to the choreography of Balanchine and Robbins, including works from the company's 1964 inaugural Lincoln Center season: The Four Temperaments, Raymonda Variations, Symphony in C and A Midsummer Night's Dream.

The company stops in NYC as part of its 50th-anniversary season. The run is split into two diverse bills: Program one includes William Forsythe's The Second Detail, José Martinez's new work (a Boston Ballet commission) Resonance and Alexander Ekman's Cacti; program two comprises Balanchine's Symphony in Three Movements, Nijinsky's Afternoon of a Faun, resident choreographer Jorma Elo's Plan to B and Jirî Kylián's Bella Figura.

The glorious Bolshoi Ballet makes a six-day New York appearance as part of the Lincoln Center Festival. The company will perform Yuri Grigorovich's Swan Lake (July 15–20), Alexei Fadeyechev's 1999 production of Don Quixote (July 22, 23), based on choreography by Marius Petipa and Alexander Gorsky, and Grigorovich's Spartacus (July 25–27). The performances feature dancers Svetlana Zakharova, David Hallberg, Maria Alexandrova, Ekaterina Shipulina, Vladislav Lantratov, Olga Smirnova, Ekaterina Krysanova, Anna Nikulina, Maria Vinogradova, Mikhail Lobukhin, Ruslan Skvortsov, Artem Ovcharenko and Denis Rodkin.

As part of the Lincoln Center Festival, De Keersmaeker's Belgium-based company revisits four early, iconic works. The performances begin with Fase, Four Movements to the Music of Steve Reich (1982), in which dancers embody Reich's Piano Phase, Come Out, Violin Phase and Clapping Music. The run continues with the seminal Rosas danst Rosas (July 11, 12), Elena's Aria (July 13, 14) and Bartók/Mikrokosmos (July 15, 16).

Jasperse acknowledges the dichotomy between appearance and essence in regard to performance and his own artistic habits in Within between.

The tap prodigy returns to the Joyce for another bout of riveting performances.