DanceAfrica at BAM tops this month’s calendar. Celebrating the 48th year as the nation’s largest festival of African dance and culture, the Memorial Day Weekend festivities (May 23-26) will include performances, films, dance classes, and community events. Under artistic director Abdel R. Salaam, Mozambique is the focus for DanceAfrica 2025, with the theme Mozambique: Movement! Magic! Manifestation!.
The program highlights the history, movement, and traditions of Mozambique, where artistic expression is a powerful form of cultural memory, spiritual connection, and resilience. This year’s performance features traditional works — including the annual Memorial Tribute to the Ancestors — and showcases Mozambique’s internationally recognized Song & Dance Company of Mozambique, alongside Mama Coumba Saaraba, The DanceAfrica Spirit Walkers, and The Billie’s Youth Arts Academy Dance Ensemble. For more information, visit www.bam.org
May 2-4: Peridance Contemporary Dance Company’s Season 42 will feature works by Igal Perry, Roderick George, Mizuho Kappa, and Lar Lubovitch. For more information, visit www.peridancecontemporary.org.
Related: Dance Calendar April 2025
May 5-19: Movement Research at the Judson Church continues its monthly offerings with performances by Kiera Bono, Stephanie García | Punto de Inflexión and Leslie Parker (May 5), Mohammadreza Akrami and Abbey McBride (May 12) and Benin Gardner, Zhangxinan Wu 吴张心安, Queer CI Cohort: Robin Ekeya, Leland Hull, Emily Jones, and Hannah Krafcik (May 19). For more information, visit movementresearch.org.
May 8-9: As part of Harlem Stage’s dance series, E-Moves, Bebe Miller Company makes its debut with the new ensemble work Indifferent Forest (2025), and solos Rain (1989) and Rhythm Studies (1999). For more information, visit harlemstage.org.
May 9-11: For their annual Mother’s Day weekend at NJPAC, and continuing to celebrate the life and legacy of artistic director emerita Judith Jamison, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, under interim artistic director Matthew Rushing, will present Sacred Songs by Rushing, Jamar Roberts’ Al-Andalus Blues, Hope Boykin’s Finding Free, Lar Lubovitch’s Many Angels, plus repertory works including Ailey’s Revelations. For more information, visit www.njpac.org.
May 10: Alethea Pace will reprise between wave and water, a site-specific performance rooted in contesting and reclaiming the history of an African Burial Ground in Hunts Point, the Bronx. For more information, visit www.eventbrite.com.
May 15-17: The experimental movement-based performance artist Ankita Sharma will present dhoka/Betrayal/, where the “Heady and erotic, dhoka entangles Hindu goddess Kali’s ultimate power with present-day authoritarianism and religious violence in a South-Asian diasporic dance-theater duet,” notes the release. For more information visit ci.ovationtix.com.
May 15-24: For this season, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company will offer two programs: Program A: Curriculum III: People, Places & Things, “created against the backdrop of a memory of freedom, and with that memory comes a taste for self-determination…” And Program B: Jones’ latest work, Memory Piece solo, where he “…reflects on pivotal moments and influential figures throughout his career …” according to the release. For more information, visit newyorklivearts.org.
May 15: New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Jerome Robbins Dance Division will present pioneers of Harlem Lite Feet who will share stories of how this New York City dance tradition and culture was created and how it has grown. For more information, visit www.worksandprocess.org.
May 18: The Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, led by artistic director Greta Campo and executive director Andy Chiang, will launch its 37th anniversary season at the Ailey CitiGroup Theater showcasing Chen’s Unfolding, Tiger and Water Lilies, plus excerpts of Shadow Force. The evening will close with Way of Fire, and the premiere of UNANiLLUSION by associate choreographer Evan Matthew Stewart. For more information, visit www.nainichen.org.
May 21-22: At the 92NY Harkness Dance Center, The Limón Dance Company celebrates its 79th anniversary with works by José Limón (La Malinche and The Moor’s Pavane), Doris Humphrey (Two Ecstatic Themes), and Join, the premiere by Aszure Barton. For more information, visit www.92ny.org.
May 29-31: The Harlem-based, Black female-led dance company EMERGE125’s 2025 season will happen at El Museo del Barrio, with repertory and restaged works by artistic director Tiffany Rea Fisher. For more information, visit emerge125.org.
May 29-Jun. 1: Led by artistic director and CEO Eduardo Vilaro, Ballet Hispánico celebrates the 150th anniversary of Bizet’s classic opera “Carmen” with a reimagining of Gustavo Ramírez Sansano’s CARMEN.maquia at New York City Center. For more information visit www.nycitycenter.org.