The best dance shows in NYC this month

[Note: Queen of Hearts returns in February for an encore run, with Lindsay Rose in the title role.] Lewis Carroll's trippy Alice in Wonderland books have inspired many theatrical spectacles, but Company XIV's seductive Queen of Hearts is a singular sexcess: a transporting fusion of haute burlesque, circus, dance and song. Your fall down the glamorous rabbit hole begins upon entering the troupe's louche Bushwick lair, where scantily clad server-performers slink about in flattering red lighting. A cursory knowledge of the source material will help you make sense of the show’s three-act cavalcade of Alice-inspired routines, as our blue-haired heroine embarks on an NC-17 coming-of-age journey under the guidance of the White Rabbit. As usual, Company XIV impresario Austin McCormick has assembled an array of alluring and highly skilled artists, who look smashing in Zane Pihlstrom's lace-and-crystal-encrusted costumes. A contortionist emerges in an S/M-vinyl cocoon and transforms into a beauteous butterfly; mustachioed twins, as Tweedledum and Tweedledee, perform a cheeky spin on the Marx Brothers' mirror trick. As the title royal, voluptuous vocalist Storm Marrero rules over all in her stunning 11-o'clock number. With its soundtrack of pop songs, attractive ensemble cast and immersive aesthetics—plus chocolate and specialty cocktails—Queen of Hearts feels like Moulin Rouge! for actual bohemians. Hell, it even has a cancan. Like Alice, you may resist returning to reality when...

La MaMa's annual festival runs riot with dance in its 20th edition, curated by the beloved Nicky Paraiso. Nearly all of the participating shows are lopal, national or world premieres. The lineup includes: John Jasperse Projects' Tides (Apr 10–13); Keith A. Thompson & danceTactics performance group's Love Alone Anthology Project (Apr 10–13); a shared bill of Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company's e-Motion and Pat Catterson's Tremor and Then (Apr 18–20); a group show of works by Hunter College and NYU Tisch MFA Choreographers (Apr 18–20); bluemouth inc.'s Lucy AI (Apr 24, 25); a pairing of Megumi Eda's solo Please Cry with a collaboration between dancer Nic Gareiss and fiddler Alexis Chartrand (April 25-27); a double bill of Jesse Zaritt and Pamela Pietro's dance for no ending and an untitled piece by Jordan Demetrius Lloyd (Apr 25–27); and Amalia Suryani's Ta’na Nirau (Apr 26, 27). The festival concludes in early May with an Emerging Choreographers Program curated by Martita Abril and Blaze Ferrer (May 1–4) and a shared program created in a partnership with the New York Arab Festival and curated by Adham Hafez (May 1–4). Individual shows cost $30, but multishow package deals are available: $45 for two, $60 for three and $95 for five. 

NYCB leaps back to Lincoln Center with a six-week slate that includes multiple dances by two of the great choreographers of the 20th century, company cofounders George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, including Balanchine's Vienna Waltzes at the Spring Gala on May 8. Among the other offerings in the varied season are the live premiere of Kyle Abraham's When We Fell; recent works by Christopher Wheeldon, Justin Peck, Alexei Ratmasky and Caili Quan; older pieces by Peck, Ratmansky and the late Lynne Taylor-Corbett; a program of work set to music by Maurice Ravel, comprising four pieces that premiered 50 years ago at the company's first Ravel Festival (May 14–24); and, for the final stretch, Balanchine's full-length forest romp A Midsummer Night's Dream (May 27–June 1). Visit the City Ballet website for a full schedule of events. New York City Ballet's current roster of principal dancers includes Tyler Angle, Gilbert Bolden III, Chun Wai Chan, Adrian Danchig-Waring, Megan Fairchild, Jovani Furlan, Emilie Gerrity, Joseph Gordon, Anthony Huxley, Isabella LaFreniere, Sara Mearns, Roman Mejia, Mira Nadon, Tiler Peck, Unity Phelan, Taylor Stanley, Daniel Ulbricht, Andrew Veyette, Emma Von Enck, Peter Walker and Indiana Woodward. Veyette departs the company in a farewell performance on May 25.

Trisha Brown's company soldiers on after the 2017 death of its founder. Its new bill at the Joyce includes Time again, a commissioned dive into questions of visibility and invisibility, newly created for the company by Australia's Lee Serle in collaboration with visual artist Mateo López and composer-soundscapist Alisdair Macindoe. The program also freatures two loose, silky pieces from Brown's Unstable Molecular Structure cycle: Opal Loop/Cloud Installation #72503 (1980), performed amid "fog sculptures" by Japan's Fujiko Nakaya, and Son of Gone Fishin’ (1981), set to excerpts from all three parts of Robert Ashley's opera Atalanta (Acts of God).

Many dance shows take themselves very seriously indeed, but not this one. In Caitlin Trainor's monthly dance-comedy show, which she and her company have been developing since 2019, a cast of five uses the language of movement to tell outrageous stories that may or may not be true—and the audience votes to decide whether it believes them. 

New York's own contemporary dance outfit Gibney Company, which has expanded its reach significantly in the 2020s, returns to the Joyce with a three-piece suite: the world premiere of postmodern-dance doyenne Lucinda Childs's Three Dances (for prepared piano) John Cage, inspired by Cage's 1944-45 ballet composition; and the company premieres of Peter Chu’s Echoes of Sole and Animal, which draws from traditional Chinese movement philosophies and practices, and Roy Assaf’s A Couple, a duet set to piano works by Brahms.

The Brooklyn choreographer Anna Sperber, who won a 2022 Bessie Award for her rooftop performance piece Bow Echo, dips back into the Chocolate Factory with a work on themes of wildness and connection. Sperber performs the piece with dancers Tim Bendernagel, Owen Prum and Zo Williams; the experimental composer and saxophonist Lea Bertucci provides the music. 

Amada Selwyn and company reflect on their 25-year history with a new evening-length piece, Awaken, that incorporates fragments and motifs from earlier works in their repertory as well as athletic new choreography. A running theme is the difficulty of maintaining one's balance amid the constant modern flow of fleeting stimuli.