Benn Widdey

The Los Angeles premiere of the feature length documentary Joffrey: Mavericks of American Dance will take place at Zipper Concert Hall in The Colburn School this Wednesday, February 1, 2012 at 8:00pm. This is the first film to chronicle how the legendary Joffrey Ballet revolutionized American ballet by daringly combining modern dance with traditional ballet and is directed by Bob Hercules.

The Canadian company La La La Human Steps brings the U.S. premiere of its newest evening-length work, New Work, down to the Barclay Theater in the OC on Thursday night. Choreographed by much heralded company artistic director Edouard Lock, this new post-modern ballet is inspired by classic Greco-Roman love stories and is set to a score by renowned composers Gavin Bryars and Blake Hargreaves.

L.A.-based performance duo Casebolt and Smith open their touring dance/theater piece, O(h) this Friday, January 13, for a six-weekends-only run through February 19 at The Actors Company Theatre in West Hollywood.

This weekend, in a shared bill at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, choreographer/performer Jamie Benson (with his "Project Runway" real-time partner/designer Andrae Gonzalo) and choreographer/new mother, Carmela Hermann (with gay retiree/accidental dad/grandfather, Terrence Luke Johnson) will beam from the stage in Mixed Marriages / Homestretch.

Labeled by Dance Magazine in 2009 as one of the 25 to Watch, Pittsburgh native and now New York rising star, choreographer Kyle Abraham brings his company, Abraham.In.Motion to REDCAT this week for five performances.

Starting their 2011-12 Dance Series at Royce Hall with a bang, UCLA Live presents a return engagement of the Hofesh Shechter Company and the U.S. premiere of Political Mother, the highly acclaimed choreographer’s first full length work. Described in promotional materials as “part dance show, part heavy rock gig, part political statement . . . and an audio-visual marvel,” the evening length event for ten dancers and as many musicians (drums and electric guitars) promises to reveal a “raw physicality [and] gritty emotional complexity.”

As part of the Sharon Disney Lund Dance Series at Cal Arts' downtown theater, Congolese choreographer and director Faustin Linyekula returns to REDCAT this week to present his newest work, more more more... future. Performed by an all-male trio of dancers (including Linyekula), more more more... future addresses the decades of war, terror, fear and the collapse of the Congolese economy by celebrating hope for the unknown days ahead.

The third and final weekend of the New Original Works Festival (NOW) at REDCAT unfolds tonight with uniquely different live theater and dance contributions created by three (really four) artists from our own backyard.

The 8th annual New Original Works Festival at REDCAT continues this week, featuring work by L.A.-based interdisciplinary creators Robert Cucuzza and Rosanna Gamson. Both theater artists will pull from literary sources to produce dramatic combinations of movement, music, text and all sorts of bells and whistles to entice the audience and embolden the perception of live performance.

Though beginning later in the year than in the past, the eighth annual New Original Works Festival starts up this weekend at REDCAT downtown. Referring to itself as a laboratory for boundary-expanding creativity in dance, theater, music and multimedia performance work, the three-week festival will uncover eight of the hidden artistic gems of our city.