Pam Tanowitz's Pastoral, Ailey Does Joni Mitchell

In the dreary month of January, summer makes a brief but welcome appearance via Pam Tanowitz’s “Pastoral” (Rose Theatre; Jan. 11-13). It’s a bucolic work, a peaceable kingdom of serene, sometimes quirky dances, set within a landscape of vibrantly colored fabric panels by the artist Sarah Crowner. Dancers move with bracing clarity as Beethoven's “Pastoral” Symphony wafts across Caroline Shaw’s musical collage, which also suggests the buzzing of insects, bird calls, rain.

- -Marina Harss

Balmy breezes blow through Maija García's new dance for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre (New York City Center; Dec. 3-Jan. 4) as well. “Jazz Island” is the Cuban American choreographer’s first collaboration with the Ailey dancers, after years of working on Broadway (“FELA!”) and in movies (“BlacKkKlansman”). It draws its inspiration from a folktale about the Haitian vodou goddess of love, Erzuli, collected in a volume of stories by the late dancer Geoffrey Holder, “Black Gods, Green Islands.” Alicia Graf Mack's first season as artistic director, abundant in new works, also includes the revival of Judith Jamison’s poignant duet “A Case of You.” T