BY ELIZABETH ZIMMER

Smuin Contemporary Ballet: July 9-14 at The Joyce Theater | Michael Smuin (1938-2007), one of ballet’s more entertaining choreographers, came out of the American west and danced with ABT and the San Francisco Ballet before turning to choreography at the age of 27. He collapsed and died of a heart attack in his studio at the age of 69, but his disciples carry his mission forward. The San Francisco troupe that bears his name, directed by Celia Fushille since his death, has been celebrating its 30th anniversary, and brings us a mixed bill of New York premieres including a 2014 dance en pointe to Vivaldi by Val Caniparoli (its Italian title translates as “Everything but the kitchen sink”—don’t say I didn’t warn you!). A new sneakered-and-barefoot work by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Tupelo Tornado, celebrates Elvis Presley. A third is by Amy Seiwert, mentored by Smuin himself; she is about to take the reins of the company. Her piece, Renaissance, performed in ballet slippers to a woman’s chorus singing Eastern European folk songs a cappella, was inspired by the largest gender equity protest in recorded history, held in India in 2019.

July 9-14 at The Joyce Theater (175 Eighth Ave. at W. 19th St.). For tickets ($12-$82), call 212-242-0800 or click here for The Joyce website. To visit the Smuin website, click here. Schedule: Tues./Wed., July 9/10, 7;30pm; Thurs./Fri., July 11/12, 8pm; Sat., July 13, 2pm & 8pm; Sun., July 14, 2pm. Curtain Chat (free post-performance discussions with artists) on Wed., July 10.

Dorrance Dance: July 16-21 at The Joyce Theater | Tap wizard Michelle Dorrance has won just about every prize out there, including a 2015 MacArthur Fellowship. The North Carolina native has performed with most of the world’s reigning tap geniuses, appeared with Stephen Colbert, choreographed for the Martha Graham Company, American Ballet Theatre, and the 2021 Broadway production of Flying Over Sunset; and she founded her dazzling troupe in 2011.  Both a musician (she plays bass and ukelele) and a dancer, Dorrance pushes the boundaries of American tap dance. When I spoke to her in late June, she’d just escaped a thunderstorm in Italy and was still cogitating a title for the new hourlong piece she’s bringing to New York. “Art is not a mirror held up to reality,” she remembers, quoting Brecht, “but a hammer with which to shape it.” Her goal is to affect the energy of strife and division tearing the world apart right now: “So much hatred, not enough kindness, not enough care.”  The working title she came up with: We Must Shift.

July 16-21 at The Joyce Theater (175 Eighth Ave. at W. 19th St.). For tickets ($12-$82), call 212-242-0800 or click here for The Joyce website. To visit the Dorrance Dance website, click here. Schedule: Tues./Wed. July 16/17 at 7:30pm; Thurs./Fri. July 18/19 at 8pm; Sat., July 20 at 2pm & 8pm; Sun. July 20 at 2pm. Curtain Chat (free post-performance discussion with artists) on Wed., July 17 and Family Matinee on Sat., July 20. (Audiences 5 to 15 and their grown-ups meet the artists following the performances—Kids’ tickets, $10.)

Ain’t Done Bad: July 9-September 1 at the Irene Diamond Stage, Pershing Square Signature Center | It’s interesting when a show by a dance artist you’ve never heard of moves into a Hell’s Kitchen theater for a run of eight weeks. The high-octane, 90-minute dance-theater piece, conceived and choreographed by Jakob Karr (a veteran of So You Think You Can Dance and other Broadway and touring shows who also performs in it) won the Orlando Fringe’s 2021 Critic’s Choice Award. To the country music of Orville Peck, the troupe tells a story of “coming out, falling in love, and finding one’s true voice as a queer person in the south.” Ads for it, with steamy slides and video, abound on Facebook. We shall see.

Previews beginning July 9; opening July 14 and running through September 1 at the Irene Diamond Stage, Pershing Square Signature Center (480 W. 42nd St., Jim Houghton Way). For tickets ($40-$75), click here to visit the show’s website. Schedule: Tues.–Fri. at 7:30pm; Sat. at 2pm and 8pm; Sun. at 7:3opm (for the week of July 9-14) and beginning July 16: Tues. at 7:30pm; Wed. at 2pm and 7:30pm; Thurs.–Fri. at 7:30pm; Sat. at 2pm and 8pm; Sun. at 7:30pm. 

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