The best dance shows in NYC this month

Matt Doyle (The Book of Mormon) and Melanie Moore (So You Think You Can Dance) star in a wordless full-length dance play choreographed by Al Blackstone. The story follows the efforts of a young man to find happiness after the traumatic rejection of a marriage proposal.

Choreographer Reggie "Regg Roc" Gray and director Kaneza Schaal present the world premiere of an immersive dance-theater piece, commissioned by the Shed, that spotlights the snappy, Jamaican-inflected street dance known as flexn. The individual skills of the ensemble's 15 dancers form the basis of this socially conscious exploration of modern coexistence; two drummers, two vocalists and a DJ provide the musical backup. 

As an offshoot of its kids’ summer daytime programming, the New Victory Theater presents major dance companies in $10 Thursday smorgasbord performances. The July 11 show includes Caleb Teicher & Company, Preeti Vasudevan's Thresh, American Ballet Theatre and BalletNext; the July 18 show features Elisa Monte Dance, Ty Defoe, Brian Brooks Moving Company and  the Chase Brock Experience; and the July 25 program comprises works by Wendy Whelan and Brian Brooks, Trisha Brown Dance Company, Passion Fruit Dance Company and A.I.M.

Having already presented opulent, adults-only burlesque takes on the previously child-oriented Snow White, Cinderella, The Nutcracker and Ferdinand the Bull, director-choreographer Austin McCormick and his fancy-naughty troupe set their sights on Lewis Carroll's oft-plundered Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Expect to go down all sorts of rabbit holes.

The Center for Traditional Music and Dance presents a platform for diverse local musicians and dancers in this free performance at Lincoln Center Out of Doors. Among the featured ensembles are Nuyorican bomba practitioners Redobles de Cultura, Staten Island's Sri Lankan Dance Academy of New York, the klezmer outfit Michael Winograd & the Honorable Mentshen and the Andean band Inkarayku.

An abstract dance-theater fusion of hip-hop and African traditions, Boy Blue's full-length work was a standout in last year's White Light Festival. Now the piece, created by the company's cofounders—choreographer Kenrick "H2O" Sandy and creative director and composer Michael "Mikey J" Asante—returns to Lincoln Center for an encore under the aegis of the Mostly Mozart Festival.

Lincoln Center's Out of Doors series presents a delightful free double bill for dance lovers: a screening of the Emmy-winning 1972 TV special Liza with a "Z," choreographed by Bob Fosse, followed by a program of works by Teicher. On the roster are Meet Ella, set to songs by Ella Fitzgerald; Small and Tall, a collection of jazzy duets; and Bzzz, which features tap dancing and live beatboxing. Capping the evening is a performance of Fosse's classic party staging of Benny Goodman's "Sing, Sing, Sing" from the 1978 musical Dancin, performed by students of LaGuardia High School.

The Joyce Theater Foundation presents a buffet of English dance in four programs, curated by the Royal Ballet's Kevin O'Hare and three of his colleagues. The visiting RB dancers—including Lauren Cuthbertson, Edward Watson and Sarah Lamb—are joined by members and past members of the National Ballet of Canada, American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet, including Robert Fairchild, Maria Kowroski and David Hallberg. The dances are by Kenneth MacMillan, Gemma Bond, Frederick Ashton, Wayne McGregor, Christopher Wheeldon and Javier de Frutos, among many others.

The 37th edition of this free annual celebration—formerly known as the Downtown Dance Festival—welcomes artists from across the United States as well as India, Spain, Canada, Gabon, Botswana, Macedonia, Kazakhstan and Turkey. The splashy final event on Sat 18 goes indoors to Pace University (where reservations are required), but all other performances take place at Robert F. Wagner Park, in front of the sparkling New York Harbor.

Fadi J. Khoury and his company continue their monthly Black Box series. The July edition features a performance of Take Two, a theatrical ballroom-inspired piece set to music by Benny Goodman, John Klemer and Dave Brubeck.

Dance Now's 24th season offers a massive festival of short works by 40 dance makers of every stripe, all challenged to mount five-minute pieces on the teeny stage at Joe's Pub. The best of the fest, as chosen by the producers, return for a special encore performance on Sept 27; they include festival winner Brendan Drake as well as binbinFactory /Satoshi Haga & Rie Fukuzawa, Blue Wyatt Project, Tsiambwom M. Akuchu, Loni Landon Dance Project, Claire Porter/PORTABLES, HUMA, Cleo Mack and many more. 

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*.