Dance

Only months after retiring from the New York City Ballet at 47, the famous principal ballerina performs new works by four male choreographers who also dance with her on stage.

The return of Martha Graham Dance Company to Zellerbach Hall featured dancers with strong Graham technique, style, and substance and repertory that was alive and juicy.

The master, music director of Cal Performances’ Ojai North festival (not to mention Ojai itself), brings his company to Zellerbach Hall for one night only.

It doesn’t exactly take insider knowledge to proclaim that the San Francisco Ballet’s Cinderella — with choreography by Christopher Wheeldon, scenery and costumes by Julian Crouch (who designed Broadway’s The Addams Family among other things), and puppetry by renowned master Basil Twist, not to mention Prokofiev’s music — is likely to be a big hit. 

Taylor, 82 and amazing, sends three shows March 30-April 2 to the Novellus Theater, including local premieres of Kith and Kin, Gossamer Gallants and The Uncommitted. 

Bonjour M. Gauguin promises to be one of the most exciting, if strange and avant-garde, operas the West Edge company has ever done. And that’s saying something.

San Francisco Chamber Orchestra Artistic Director Ben Simon always concocts a hook that appeals to me and puts me in the mood to hear a concert.

The San Francisco Symphony and Chorus, conducted by Charles Dutoit, perform Hector Berlioz’s Te Deum in colossal mode, along with the Pacific Boychoir.

Artistic Director Ashley Wheater leads the venerable Chicago-based Joffrey Ballet into Zellerbach Hall Jan. 26-27 with Christopher Wheeldon’s After the Rain, Edward Liang’s Age of Innocence and Kurt Jooss’ antiwar classic, The Green Table.

Funny and irreverent, surely, yet Mark Morris’Hard Nut is also a tremendous example of direct, emotional, musical storytelling.