Dance: Watch their steps

Through next June, dozens of works by many of the world's great choreographers will distinguish Philadelphia's dance season. And after a long, dry summer with almost no performances, the local dance community is getting back to the studio - and soon to the stage. Philadanco and Pennsylvania Ballet are preparing old favorites and new works. BalletX, dedicated to mounting new modern ballets, will be doing just that, as Jeanne Ruddy Dance breaks ground and Kun Yang Lin presents his first evening-length work in Philadelphia.

Here are some critics' choices to watch for.

For years, the city's best-known modern dance company has been offering an alternative to The Nutcracker. But this year mark your calendar instead for Oct. 16-19, when Philadanco will bring audience favorites from local hip-hop pioneer Rennie Harris, as well as Christopher Huggins, Ronald K. Brown and Tally Beatty, to the Kimmel Center. Then, in late April, the company returns with an innovative infusion of four world premieres.

Pennyslvania Ballet
Pennsylvania Ballet's opening run, starting Oct. 29, features the work of Italy's foremost choreographer, the idiosyncratic Mauro Bigonzetti, who has led Compagnia Aterballetto in Rome since 1997. At the Academy of Music, the ballet dances his high-voltage Kazimir's Colors, inspired by the works of Russian painter Kazimir Malevich, to Shostakovich's Concerto for Piano, Trumpet and Orchestra. That should give the musicians under Beatrice Jona Affron's baton as rollicking a time as the dancers.

BalletX

The young troupe's first year as resident dance company at the Wilma Theater went so well that BalletX has signed on for three more years. Look for their next performances in November, with new works by Matthew Neenan and Zane Booker, and another run in April, with a program still to be announced.

Édouard Lock

Leading the list of visiting international titans is Montreal's famed choreographer Édouard Lock, founder of LaLaLa Human Steps, debuting at the Kimmel's Perelman Theater Nov. 6. Lock set his 2007 evening-length work, Amjad, to deconstructed and reconstructed passages from Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty. Four musicians play the new score, commissioned from Britain's Gavin Bryars and Pulitzer Prize-winning American David Lang, who winnowed it from the original Tchaikovsky. The music drives the company's hyperphysical movement reinventions, making this a meta-ballet.

'Nutcracker'
On Dec. 12, Pennsylvania Ballet presents its 40th Nutcracker season — but only the second year for its breathtakingly beautiful new costumes and Philadelphia-evocative sets.

Dance Celebration

Now take a deep breath and contemplate Dance Celebration Series at the Annenberg Center, which presents a season-spanning nine-concert lineup called Dancemakers that includes 15 Philadelphia premieres. One high point will be Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, celebrating the company's 40th year with its first U.S. tour since 1995. On Jan. 8-10, they'll perform Concerto Six Twenty-Two, company founder/choreographer Lubovitch's signature work from 1986.

Before that, on Oct. 29, Israeli choreographer Inbal Pinto and her company perform Shaker, saturating Annenberg's stage with dazzling movement and color. Inspired by a snow globe's slow-floating motes, Pinto co-choreographed the achingly poignant 2006 work with her partner Avshalom Pollak. Their company and Batsheva Dance Company - coming Feb. 3 with choreographer Ohad Naharin's compilation of a decade of his work, Decadance - make their Philadelphia debuts in conjunction with Israel's 60th anniversary. (Inbal Pinto Dance Company performs Oct. 28 as a special event in association with PhillyIsraelim to celebrate the anniversary, open only to group sales of 10 or more.)

On Feb. 20, Les Ballets Jazz de Montréal's program pairs MAPA by Rodrigo Pederneiras, the brilliant Brazilian choreographer and artistic director of Grupo Corpo Brazilian Dance Theater, with the season's second look at Italy's Bigonzetti, this time his Rossini's Cards.

London's Royal Ballet couldn't contain the impish Michael Nunn and William Trevitt, so they started their own company, quickly dubbed Ballet Boyz by their adoring British fans. They return to the Annenberg after a five-year absence March 17-18, bringing back Christopher Wheeldon's Mesmerics, a hit from that visit. A duet by Russell Maliphant also wowed the audience on that program. This time it'll be Maliphant's Laurence Olivier Award-winner, Broken Fall.
The choreography in the series' performances May 14-16 by National Dance Company of Spain 2 is all by artistic director Nacho Duato, last enjoyed by local audiences in 2002.

All this imported choreographic talent should in no way overshadow our first-rate home team.

Kun Yang Lin founded his Asian-influenced KYL/Dancers in New York, but relocated the company here last year after teaching at Temple for several years. The troupe's first major local appearance graces the Painted Bride Feb. 6-7.

That same weekend, our quirky Headlong Dance Theater reemerges after several uncharacteristically low-key years in a symbiotic, shared program with New Yorker Keely Garfield. Part of the Philadelphia Dance Project series at the Performance Garage, Headlong's program has yet to be announced. Garfield performs Limerance, featuring tricky lighting and a bicycle.

Craved by audiences worldwide and raved over by the press, Rennie Harris Puremovement gives its hometown a world premiere of Harris' new evening-length work 100NakedLocks. At the Kimmel's Perelman Theater Feb. 20-22, he will create a world inspired by global cataclysms and peopled by the last 100 hip-hop survivors.

Tucked away in its converted garage at 15th and Brandywine, Jeanne Ruddy Dance might seem easy to overlook - but Ruddy, a former Martha Graham dancer, and her company are a jewel on the Philadelphia dance scene.

In April, the company will be back with world premieres by Ruddy and Martha Clarke, a founding member of Pilobolus and creator of many varied and striking dance-theater pieces.

After step-dancing its way across the globe for a decade, the Irish show Riverdance is making its farewell tour, and will be Celting it up at the Academy of Music March 31-April 5.

And Brenda and Eddie will still be going steady when Movin' Out, Twyla Tharp's dance musical to songs by Billy Joel, hits the Academy for a three-night run May 15-17. Tharp uses only the best dancers from the ballet and modern world, as well as the strongest musical-theater performers, for her shows. This one won two Tonys (one for her) and ran for 1,303 performances.