Misty Copeland–Curated Ballet Festival and More Set for The Joyce 2026 Spring/Summer Season
Noé Soulier makes his Joyce debut opening the season with the U.S. premiere of The Waves, plus more.
By: Chloe Rabinowitz Dec. 02, 2025
The Joyce Theater Foundation has revealed its programming for the Spring/Summer 2026 season in the newly named Tino & Rajika Puri Auditorium at The Joyce Theater, the world’s home for dance and a landmark institution in New York’s performing arts landscape. Spanning 24 weeks, the season brings together internationally celebrated ballet artists, powerhouse contemporary companies, and singular choreographic voices for a vivid array of performances that energize the city’s spring and summer cultural life.
The season begins with a global constellation of choreographic perspectives that showcase the breadth of contemporary dance today. As part of the Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival in New York, Noé Soulier makes his Joyce debut opening the season with the U.S. premiere of The Waves, a Woolf-inspired meditation on gesture and perception, followed by the return of Compagnie Hervé KOUBI with the kinetic, spiritually charged Sol Invictus. The international lens continues as Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana unveils the New York City premiere of Patricia Guerrero’s QUINTO ELEMENTO (Fifth Element), offering a bold exploration of flamenco’s aesthetic and emotional frontiers.
A deep engagement with music and interdisciplinary collaboration threads through a major portion of the season. Johnny Loves Johann unites Grammy Award–winning violinist and MacArthur Fellow Johnny Gandelsman with choreographers John Heginbotham, Caili Quan, Jamar Roberts, and Melissa Toogood—reframing Bach’s Cello Suites through contemporary movement and narrative. Later in the summer, Mark Morris Dance Group returns with Dances to American Music, a three-program survey illuminating Morris’s lifelong devotion to musical craft, from jazz innovators to West Coast experimentalists and the iconic sounds of American country music.
Anchoring the heart of the season, Pilobolus returns for an expansive three-week summer residency—continuing a decades-long Joyce tradition—with Trips, an interdimensional journey that exemplifies the company’s theatrical imagination, collective inventiveness, and boundary-defying physicality. Hubbard Street Dance Chicago offers two exhilarating weeks that span modern classics and exclusive commissions, from Fosse and Duato to new creations by James Gregg and Matthew Rushing. Parsons Dance follows, also for two-weeks, with its signature vitality, presenting two world premieres alongside repertory favorites that highlight the company’s joyful athleticism and enduring artistic spark. The season continues with Ailey II, whose emotional depth and physical power animate a sweep of new works and cherished repertory; Gibney Company, presenting creations by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Lucinda Childs, and Medhi Walerski; Doug Varone and Dancers, commemorating its 40th anniversary with repertory and a world premiere set to Radiohead’s In Rainbows; PHILADANCO!, advancing its lineage of Black American concert dance with four choreographic voices, including the 25th anniversary of Christopher Huggins’ Enemy Behind the Gates; and Tap City, curated by Tony Waag, marking the 25th anniversary of the New York City Tap Festival with a vibrant celebration of legacy and rhythm. Rounding out this dynamic arc, Step Afrika! makes its Joyce debut with The Migration: Reflections on Jacob Lawrence, a powerful fusion of percussive movement, visual art, and American history that brings the spirit and resilience of Jacob Lawrence’s iconic series to life.
A rich investment in ballet rounds out the season. American Ballet Theatre Studio Company returns with a program of premieres and neoclassical favorites that highlight the next generation of ballet artists, while Ballet Tech Kids Dance brings the exuberance of youth and community to the stage in a new full-length ballet by Artistic Director Dionne Figgins. In August, The Joyce's Ballet Festival, curated this year by Misty Copeland—one of the most influential ballet artists of her generation and an enduring ambassador for the field—gathers exceptional dancers and choreographers from globally recognized companies to honor ballet’s lineage and illuminate the voices shaping its future.
Together, these programs reveal a season defined by theatrical imagination, musical rigor, global reach, and an expansive embrace of both ballet and contemporary dance. From premieres and commissions to reimagined masterworks, Spring/Summer 2026 reflects The Joyce’s enduring role as the world’s home for dance—where artists, ideas, and audiences meet what is new, resonant, and profoundly alive on the stage of the Tino & Rajika Puri Auditorium.
The following is a complete roster of companies who will appear at The Joyce Theater this spring and summer:
Noé Soulier
The Waves
March 4-5
Wed-Thurs 7:30pm
Tickets: $17 - $62
Press Contact: Richard Kornberg & Associates/Billy Zavelson, billy@kornbergpr.com
Rooted in the exploration of physical memory, choreographer Noé Soulier makes his Joyce Theater debut with a work that draws audiences into an evocative, multisensory world—inviting them to perceive abstracted objects and events as more than their original form. The Waves, receiving its U.S. premiere, takes inspiration from Virginia Woolf’s landmark modernist novel, unfolding as a mesmerizing choreographic and musical composition shaped by momentum, phrasing, and rhythm. Six exceptional dancers and two master percussionists merge the expressiveness of gesture and sound, creating a corporeal experience that echoes the visceral power of Woolf’s writing. Presented as part of the Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival.
Compagnie Hervé KOUBI
Sol Invictus
March 10-15
Tue-Sat 7:30pm, Sun 2pm
Curtain Chat: Wed, March 11
Tickets: $17 - $72
Press Contact: Richard Kornberg & Associates/Billy Zavelson, billy@kornbergpr.com
Led by the imaginative choreographer Hervé Koubi, Compagnie Hervé KOUBI returns to New York with the mesmerizingly kinetic Sol Invictus. Named after the “invincible sun” deity, the work upholds love as the guarantor of peace, that despite fracture, communion emerges as humanity’s saving grace. The music score includes a composition by Swedish composer Mikael Karlsson, with excerpts by Steve Reich and digital composer Maxime Bodson. “I want to talk about light, solidarity, and those bonds that unite us,” says Koubi. “Here, the sun and the dance will emerge victorious.” This engagement is part of the Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival.
Ailey II
March 17-22
Tue-Fri 7:30pm, Sat-Sun 2pm & 7:30pm
Curtain Chat: Wed, March 18
Tickets: $17 - $82
Press Contact: Nicole Tintle, ntintle@ailey.org; and Mia Ortega, mortega@ailey.org
Ailey II—the next generation of dance—has brought its technical mastery and emotional depth to works by the most daring established and emerging choreographers since its 1974 inception. This spring, the company performs new works including Renée I. McDonald’s intense Likes vs Life, Rena Butler’s athletically powered In Session, My’Kal Stromile’s endearing Third Person Point of View, and Chalvar Monteiro’s Berry Dreamin’, set to the music of the late Chuck Berry. The company will also perform Alvin Ailey’s beloved classic, Streams. Ailey II embodies Alvin Ailey’s pioneering mission to establish an extended cultural community, providing dance performances, training, and programming for all.
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago
March 24-April 5
Tue-Fri 7:30pm, Sat 2pm & 7:30pm, Sun 2pm
Curtain Chat: Wed, March 25
Tickets: $17 - $72
Press Contact: Richard Kornberg & Associates/Billy Zavelson, billy@kornbergpr.com
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago arrives back at The Joyce for two weeks this season with an electric mix of exclusive commissions and modern classics. From March 24–29, Nacho Duato’s 2005 creation for Hubbard Street, Gnawa, appears alongside Aszure Barton’s signature Blue Soup and the show-stopping Sweet Gwen Suite by Bob Fosse & Gwen Verdon, a highlight of the ongoing historic partnership between Hubbard Street and the Verdon Fosse® Legacy. Week two (March 31–April 5) features another virtuosic Fosse work, Percussion IV, with Hubbard Street commission Within the Frame by the genre-defying James Gregg, Beauty Chasers by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Associate Artistic Director Matthew Rushing, and the spectacular finale, Blue Soup by Barton, Resident Artist with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago.
Gibney Company
April 8-12
Wed-Fri 7:30pm, Sat 2pm & 7:30pm, Sun 2pm
Gala Performance: Tue, April 7 6pm
Curtain Chat: Thu, April 9
Tickets: $17 - $72
Press Contact: Kimberly Giannelli, kimberly@theprsocial.com
Applauded for its astonishingly expressive artists and choreographic collaborations that push the boundaries of contemporary dance, Gibney Company marks five years of performances exhibiting its dancers’ brilliant physicality and technical prowess. This year’s compelling program includes the world premiere of On Contemplation of Wailing, created by Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, the visionary founder of Urban Bush Women; and Lucinda Childs’ Canto Ostinato, a much-heralded 2015 work set to a spellbinding score by Simeon ten Holt that builds hypnotic patterns as it unfolds in a luminous play of light. Audiences will also be treated to Ballet BC Artistic Director Medhi Walerski’s Silent Tides, a 2020 piece using radiant design and sensuous partnering to reflect on love, mortality, and renewal.
Johnny Loves Johann
April 14-19
Tue-Sat 7:30pm, Sun 2pm
Curtain Chat: Wed, April 15
Tickets: $17 - $72
Press Contact: Richard Kornberg & Associates/Billy Zavelson, billy@kornbergpr.com
Named "a violinist who can do anything" by the Philadelphia Inquirer, Grammy Award-winning violinist, producer, and 2024 MacArthur Fellow Johnny Gandelsman, unites with acclaimed choreographers John Heginbotham, Caili Quan, Jamar Roberts, and Melissa Toogood for Johnny Loves Johann. This New York premiere pairs Johnny’s folk-inspired violin interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach’s complete Cello Suites with original choreography performed by its creators. Johnny Loves Johann unfolds as a vibrant and intimate conversation with Bach’s music, celebrating the dance and humanity at the heart of these iconic works.
Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana
QUINTO ELEMENTO (Fifth Element)
April 21-26
Tue-Fri 7:30pm, Sat 2pm & 7:30pm, Sun 2pm
Curtain Chat: Wed, April 22
Tickets: $17 - $72
Press Contact: Hanaah Bates, hanaah@flamenco-vivo.org
Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana returns to The Joyce with the New York City premiere of QUINTO ELEMENTO (Fifth Element), an evening-length work by acclaimed choreographer Patricia Guerrero, winner of Spain’s National Dance Award, with an original score by Francis Gómez performed live. Featuring Flamenco Vivo’s world-renowned international cast of dancers and musicians, the work explores the elusive fifth element of the earth—ether, the invisible essence that connects all things. Guerrero ventures beyond flamenco’s aesthetic bounds, embracing chaos and fragmentation to reveal its essence—its invisible fifth element—and make it tangible to audiences.
Parsons Dance
April 29-May 10
Week 1: Wed-Fri 7:30pm, Sat 2pm & 7:30pm, Sun 2pm
Week 2: Tue-Fri 7:30pm, Sat 2pm & 7:30pm, Sun 2pm
Curtain Chat: Wed, May 6
Tickets: $17 - $72
Press Contact: Richard Kornberg & Associates/Billy Zavelson, billy@kornbergpr.com
Applauded for its joyful performances, Parsons Dance highlights its dancers’ high-energy athleticism and artistic virtuosity with an exciting lineup of works by some of today’s hottest choreographers performed alongside repertory classics. Audiences will have the chance to experience two world premieres: one created by David Parsons, set to the second movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9; and one by Mayte Natalio, with an original score by Daniel Kluger. Also on the program: a new commission by Courtney “Balenciaga” Washington centering on the dancers’ remarkable collective strength. Two Parsons classics return to The Joyce stage: Caught and Nascimento Novo, a 2006 collaboration between David Parsons and legendary musical artist Milton Nascimento that draws on his band’s percussionists to produce sounds rarely heard outside Brazil.
American Ballet Theatre Studio Company
May 13-17
Wed-Sun 7:30pm
Curtain Chat: Thu, May 14
Tickets: $17 - $72
Press Contact: Laura Miller, lmiller@abt.org
Dedicated to cultivating the next generation of ballet dancers, choreographers, and audiences, American Ballet Theatre Studio Company presents a richly varied program that highlights the versatility and technical acuity of today’s young dance artists. This year’s Joyce selection includes New York City Premieres choreographed by Tiler Peck, Katie Currier, and ABT dancer Brady Farrar, as well as recent favorites, including Bernstein in a Bubble by Alexei Ratmansky, Cornbread by Twyla Tharp, and other classical and neoclassical selections.
Tap City — 25th Anniversary
May 19-24
Tue-Fri 7:30pm, Sat 2pm & 7:30pm, Sun 2pm
Curtain Chat: Wed, May 20
Tickets: $17 - $72
Press Contact: Richard Kornberg & Associates/Billy Zavelson, billy@kornbergpr.com
For 25 years, the American Tap Dance Foundation (ATDF) has served as a vital component of American tap dance, preserving its remarkable history while nurturing today’s young talent. This season, founder Tony Waag’s Tap City, the New York City Tap Festival, brings together a rich diversity of contemporary tap dance with a combination of emerging talent as well as premiere choreographers. Leading tap masters and up-and-coming young hoofers will revive and re-stage classic choreography by Brenda Bufalino, Gregory Hines, and the legendary Copasetics, while they present their own world premieres. Directed and curated by Waag, the program showcases the variety of styles inherent to the form accompanied by live music and rare historic footage from the ATDF archives.
Doug Varone and Dancers
May 27-31
Wed-Fri 7:30pm, Sat 2pm & 7:30pm, Sun 2pm
Curtain Chat: Thu, May 28
Tickets: $17 - $62
Press Contact: Patty Bryan, pbryan@dovadance.org
Honed over four decades, choreographer Doug Varone’s distinctive movement style captures both the deeply emotional and the immensely physical. This year, Doug Varone and Dancers commemorates its 40th anniversary with works from the company canon, including his Bessie Award–winning Boats Leaving (2006), as well as a world premiere set to Radiohead’s iconic album In Rainbows. Varone’s steadfastly independent vision lends an epic quality to even his most intimate works.
Ballet Tech Kids Dance
June 4-7
Thu-Fri 7pm, Sat 2pm & 7pm, Sun 2pm
Tickets: $17 - $52
Press Contact: Blake Zidell, blake@blakezidell.com
It would not be June without Ballet Tech Kids Dance lighting up The Joyce stage! Celebrating five years as Artistic Director, Dionne Figgins premieres a full-length ballet, featuring students dancing alongside BT alumni. This new work highlights the journey of Ballet Tech students from studio to stage, showcasing the inspiration, technique, determination, and heart it takes to bring a trainee’s dancing to life. Also on the program are two Kids Dance classics choreographed by Ballet Tech Founder Eliot Feld, Joggers and A Stair Dance, both sharing an urban playground sensibility. Kids Dance 2026 has something for everyone, so you and your family will not want to miss it!
Step Afrika!
June 10-21
Week 1: Wed-Fri 7:30pm, Sat-Sun 2pm & 7:30pm
Week 2: Tue-Fri 7:30pm, Sat-Sun 2pm & 7:30pm
Curtain Chat: Thu, June 11
Tickets: $17 - $82
Press Contact: Lamar Lovelace, llovelace@stepafrika.org
Step Afrika!, the world’s leading authority on the art form of stepping, brings its production of The Migration: Reflections on Jacob Lawrence, an innovative fusion of dance, history, and visual art that transforms the stage into a living canvas. Drawing inspiration from Jacob Lawrence’s The Migration Series (1940–41)—the iconic 60-panel collection divided between the Museum of Modern Art here in New York City and The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC—this critically acclaimed performance captures the resilience, hope, and determination of millions of African Americans who journeyed northward in search of freedom and opportunity. Through pulsating rhythms, percussive footwork, and stunning imagery, Step Afrika! honors the legacy of a people and a painter—bringing to life a story that is both deeply personal and profoundly American.
Pilobolus
Trips
June 23-July 12
Tue-Fri 7:30pm, Sat 2pm & 7:30pm, Sun 2pm
Additional 2pm matinee on Wed, July 1
No evening performance on Sat, July 4
Curtain Chat: Wed, June 24
Tickets: $17 - $82
Press Contact: Richard Kornberg & Associates/Billy Zavelson, billy@kornbergpr.com
Blast off into the Pilobolus multiverse with Trips, a seamless journey through gravity-defying feats and emotional landscapes. Each piece flows into the next with explosive athleticism, physical poetry, and sly humor that will bring you on a journey to infinite realities. From the skies to the soul to galaxies beyond, Trips is not just a series of works—it is a single, shifting experience led by an intergalactic captain on a voyage through Pilobolus.
Mark Morris Dance Group and Music Ensemble
Dances to American Music
July 14-25
Tue-Fri 7:30, Sat 2pm & 7:30pm
Tickets: $17 - $82
Press Contact: Kimberly Giannelli, kimberly@theprsocial.com
Mark Morris Dance Group and Music Ensemble returns to The Joyce with Dances to American Music, a three-program repertory series highlighting Morris’s lifelong devotion to music. Soul of America (Program A) features live music of jazz innovators James P. Johnson and George Gershwin. American Mavericks (Program C) is set to the expansive scores of West Coast composers Henry Cowell and Lou Harrison. American Heartbeat (Program B) includes a full program of early recorded music by American country legends Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, The Louvin Brothers, and George Jones.
PHILADANCO! The Philadelphia Dance Company
July 29-August 2
Wed-Fri 7:30pm, Sat 2pm & 7:30pm, Sun 2pm
Curtain Chat: Thu, July 30
Tickets: $17 - $72
Press Contact: Kencle Satchell, ksatch39@gmail.com
Continuing its mission for over five decades to preserve Black traditions in dance, PHILADANCO! upholds the lineage of Black American concert dance at its highest standard and propels it into the future with bold, fresh artistic voices. This dynamic Joyce season highlights four distinctive voices that reveal PHILADANCO!’s unmistakable power and evolution, including Thang Dao’s striking Roked; Tommie-Waheed Evans’ emotionally charged Promise Me You Won’t Call; and a new creation by Rennie Harris, set to the unmistakable sound of Philadelphia celebrating the legacy of Philadelphia International Records. The engagement also marks the 25th anniversary of Christopher Huggins’ epic tour de force, Enemy Behind the Gates, a masterwork that has endured across generations and continues to resonate with audiences around the world.
Ballet Festival Curated by Misty Copeland
August 4-16
Tue-Fri 7:30pm, Sat 2pm & 7:30pm, Sun 2pm
Curtain Chat: Wed, August 5
Tickets: $17 - $92
Press Contact: Richard Kornberg & Associates/Billy Zavelson, billy@kornbergpr.com
This summer, The Joyce’s Ballet Festival returns for two weeks of dance curated by Misty Copeland, celebrating ballet’s bright past, present, and future. Recognized for moving the art form of ballet forward, Copeland’s festival brings together a selection of top talent from globally recognized ballet companies, including world-class dancers, visionary choreographers, and fresh creative voices that continue to shape the future of dance. Join us in celebrating ballet’s bright past, present, and future!
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