The best dance shows in NYC this month

The venerable company—including dancers Stella Abrera, Isabella Boylston, Misty Copeland, Herman Cornejo, Sarah Lane, Hee Seo, Christine Shevchenko, Cory Stearns, Devon Teuscher and James Whiteside—returns to Lincoln Center for two weeks. Among the pieces slated to be performed are two works by Twyla Tharp (Deuce Coupe and the world premiere of The Gathering of Ghosts) and two by Jessica Lang (Garden Blue and the new Let Me Sing Forevermore). Also on the roster are pieces by George Balanchine, Gemma Bond, Clark Tippet, Alexei Ratmansky and Michelle Dorrance.

Director-choreographer Michael Keegan-Dolan, formerly of Fabulous Beast, puts a fantastical modern Irish spin on the classic ballet in this dance-theater piece, whose cast includes the very fine actor Mikel Murfi. Here, the swans are girls who have been sexually abused by a priest, the lake is black plastic, and the prince is a depressive loner. The trio Slow Moving Clouds provides the music.

In its latest Joyce engagement, Kyle Abraham's modern-dance company performs a mixed bill that includes the world premiere of a solo that he performs (backed by a live gospel choir) along with Trisha Brown's Solo Onos and reprises of Abraham's Show Pony and Keerati Jinakunwiphat's group number Big Rings.

Local butoh star Vangeline curates this showcase for the avant-garde minimalist art form. Along with workshops and classes, the festival includes seven nights of performances, including Hijikata, Mon Amour (October 24–26), an homage to butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata that Vangeline performs in a replica of the magnificent red costume worn by Hijikata in 1968's Revolt of the Flesh.

The American ballet rule-bender, who made his name at the helm of Germany's Ballet Frankfurt and the Forsythe Company, presents an evening of works designed to highlight the breathing of the dancers: Brigel Gjoka, Jill Johnson, Christopher Roman, Parvaneh Scharafai, Riley Watts, Ander Zabala and breakdancer Rauf "Rubberlegz" Yasit. One piece is performed in silence, and others to recordings of birdsong; two new pieces, Epilogue and Seventeen/Twenty One, are set to music by Morton Feldman and Jean-Philippe Rameau, respectively.

Music and dance merge to explore questions of life and death in this collaboration among four major artists. Longtime City Ballet étoile Wendy Whelan performs choreography by Lucinda Childs while cellist Maya Beiser, also onstage, plays an original score by David Lang.

Karole Armitage's 1970s grounding in the work of George Balanchine and Merce Cunningham has let her take off in multiple directions since, from her "punk ballerina" phase in the 1980s to the video for Madonna's "Vogue" and the 2009 Broadway revival of Hair. This piece, inspired by Noh theater, stars longtime Armitage dancer Megumi Eda as the ghost of one of the prince's jealous lovers in The Tale of Genji. 

The Texas dance institution makes a rare East Coast appearance with a trio of works: the New York premieres of two HB commissions—Mark Morris's The Letter V (2015) and Justin Peck's Reflections (2019)—and a reprise of Aszure Barton's 2006 piece Come In. 

The Danish dancer-choreographer behind the orgiastic 7Pleasures returns to NYC with another piece devoted to sexuality and society. Expect strange blue body suits, elaborate group-groping positions, and penetrating questions about body politics and pleasure.

Erstwhile American Ballet Theater principals Diana Vishneva and Marcelo Gomes reunite for this new multimedia dance-theater work, which imagines what dreams may come to Aurora when she has shuffled off this waking coil. The dancers' movement, choreographed by Edward Clug, is augmented by live digital avatars created by Tobias Gremmler and fuse*. 

This magical 1954 production, set to Tchaikovsky's incredible score, includes the full New York City Ballet company and two casts of School of American Ballet students, as well as an onstage blizzard and a Christmas tree that grows from 12 to 40 feet. In the end, however, Balanchine's choreography is what holds it all together. It's enchanting.

The company offers its annual performance of The Yorkville Nutcracker, set in 1895 New York. This year once again features guests Abi Stafford and Ask la Cour—both of whom have been New York City Ballet principals—as the Sugar Plum Fairy and her cavalier.