Benn Widdey

Exploding onto our local landscape after performing in Israel (and beyond) with the highly acclaimed Batsheva Dance Company, dancer/choreographer Danielle Agami is planting roots for her Gaga movement-based Ate9 dANCEcOMPANY here in Los Angeles.

This Sunday offers the unique opportunity to see some world-class dancing as two emerging companies share the stage in a possibly once in a lifetime double bill.

Though it's a trite cliche, this week fulfills the adage "when it rains, it pours." There's a ton of good contemporary dance happening all over the city, and then some further south.

Most of the time, the out of town contemporary dance that visits us in LA has a pretty deep line of credits to sponsor its appearance in the southland. There are only a couple of local presenters that risk a little and bring lesser known artists into our midst. Show Box LA, an artist-run relatively young organization, has been doing this in its own shoestring way for a few years now and this weekend, it is hosting the arrival of the highly acclaimed luciana achugar to the theater at the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles. for shows Friday and Saturday nights.

This weekend, one of the more significant works of the postmodern canon is being resurrected and returned to our consciousness. Brought to us by the Center for Art and Performance at UCLA, Belgium's Ultima Vez, under the choreographic direction of Wim Vandekeybus, re-mounts the evening-length, mind-blowing and influential "What the Body Does Not Remember" (from 1987) in Royce Hall for only two performances.

Los Angeles native and contemporary dancer, Victor Quijada, returns to his hometown with his international company, Rubberbandance, for a single performance this Saturday night at the Luckman Fine Arts Complex on the campus of CSULA.

After downtown's recent 100 year celebration of the 1913 premiere of Igor Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring," the intimate Barclay Theater in Irvine is hosting a solo interpretation of the groundbreaking music for only one performance this coming Tuesday night.

In its important tradition of bringing contemporary cutting edge foreign performing art to the local scene, REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney Cal Arts Theater) welcomes Japanese choreographer/video artist Hiroaki Umeda to its downtown stage this weekend for only three performances. As part of the Sharon Disney Lund Dance Series, the Tokyo-based creator/performer will present two highly acclaimed companion pieces, “Haptic” and “Holistic Strata” during his all-too-short residency in Los Angeles.

In honor of this homeboy pride and the 100 year anniversary of the dance's premiere in France, the 10th anniversary of the Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center series brings the nationally-treasured Joffrey Ballet to The Music Center's Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for three performances this weekend.

With modern dance icon Merce Cunningham’s recent passing and his astute attention to the legacy he was leaving behind, other artists are examining their oeuvre and noting the gems in their histories. One of these diamonds is making the trip from its origin in New York’s downtown dance/performance scene to REDCAT for a handful of shows Thursday through Sunday this week.