Benn Widdey

Getting back to basics, Vox Dance Theatre, in association with The Colburn School, is presenting the first in a series of monthly dinnertime performances this Sunday in the dance studio at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center.

Though our own city just initiated its own contemporary dance festival last weekend at Brockus Project Studios and the Diavolo Dance Theater, our adjacent neighbor has been developing its dance audiences, participants and performances for five years running in the Pasadena Dance Festival.

Exploding into the 2012 season of Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music Center, the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève brings its European perspective to the Music Center’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion this weekend for three North American premiere performances.

Seattle-based choreographer Dayna Hanson is bringing her latest dance theater creation, GLORIA'S CAUSE, to REDCAT for its Los Angeles premiere in four performances this week.

Although the country/continent of Australia isn't usually known for its performing arts, the Luckman Theater at Cal State L.A. is presenting one of Down Under's finest dance ensembles this weekend. For one show only, the technology-driven athletic company Chunky Move will grace the Los Angeles stage with the local premiere of its evening length Connected.

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.

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.