You could say things are turning upside down in dance this spring, with ballet taking on tough issues, a First Nations troupe embracing high tech, and programs where dancers move not to music but words. Add a brilliant Parisian, one daring Belgian, and a bunch of adrenalized Brazilians to the scene, and you have a pretty colourful season ahead.

Foutrement

(At the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre from March 3 to 5)

The Vancouver International Dance Festival presents Compagnie Virginie Brunelle’s provocative exploration of love and lust. Brunelle uses buckled belts, hockey pads, pointe shoes, and bare skin to draw a triangle of obsession and betrayal.

The Draw: The fearless, jaded take on love, and the brutally honest, rackingly physical dance that’s touched with balletic beauty.

Target Audience: Anyone who considers relationships an extreme sport.

Program 2

(At the Queen Elizabeth Theatre from March 17 to 19)

Ballet BC has a lot of exciting stuff coming up for the latter part of its 30th-anniversary season—including a work by bold Batsheva Dance Company alumna Sharon Eyal in May. But our pick is this full evening by Paris-based choreographer Medhi Walerski and its promise of poetic, unpredictable delights. Ballet BC is amping up its corps to 25 with the help of Arts Umbrella for this stage-filler.

The Draw: Walerski’s cheekily cool Petite Cérémonie ranks as one of the company’s biggest audience favourites, and the Paris Opera Ballet and Nederlands Dans Theater talent has a gift for drawing out all the company members’ personalities on-stage.

Target Audience: Balletomanes who love the element of surprise.

Words in Motion

(At the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts on March 18 and 19)

In this copresentation with the Dance Centre, words and movement meet as three choreographers interpret the work of three writers. Contemporary aboriginal-dance practitioner Olivia C. Davies expresses Carmen Aguirre’s memoirs about revolution in South America; bharata natyam specialist Anusha Fernando interprets Aislinn Hunter’s The World Before Us; and contemporary dance artist Paraskevas Terezakis explores Nancy Lee’s Dead Girls.

The Draw: Top-flight wordsmiths matching minds with a truly diverse trio of choreographers.

Target Audience: Bookworms who want to let loose their inner dance fiend.

Companhia Urbana de Danca

(At the Vancouver Playhouse on April 1 and 2)

DanceHouse presents the red-hot Rio de Janeiro troupe on its first Canadian tour.

The Draw: The company’s spicy feijoada of hip-hop, samba, capoeira, and contemporary dance will leave you adrenalized for days.

Target Audience: Travel bugs longing for a hit of Brazilian heat.

Going Home Star—Truth and Reconciliation

(At the Queen Elizabeth Theatre from April 7 to 9)

The Royal Winnipeg Ballet finally delivers the West Coast debut of its powerful residential-school work. Conjured by choreographer Mark Godden and centring on an aboriginal woman dealing with the same trauma that haunts so many in Canada’s indigenous community, it may be the most important piece ever mounted by the famous company.

The Draw: Finding out if a classical form like ballet can be used to address an issue as painfully relevant as today’s headlines.

Target Audience: Those unafraid to look into the darkness of Canada’s past while holding out hope for the future.

Just Words

(At the Firehall Arts Centre from April 27 to 30)

Veteran dance artist Serge Bennathan creates a poetic reflection on the life of an artist.

The Draw: Bennathan is doing some intriguing work with text and movement these days, and his dancers here—Karissa Barry and Hilary Maxwell—are magnetic.

Target Audience: Fans of both the written word and the moving body.

Revolt

(At the Scotiabank Dance Centre from May 5 to 7)

Thierry Smits’s Compagnie Thor presents a solo for Australian firecracker Nicola Leahey in an intense study of power, resistance, oppression, and citizen protest—especially as they concern women.

The Draw: Leahey, who is as insanely watchable as she is willing to push herself to extremes and embody whole worlds of conflict.

Target Audience: Activists, feminists, and sociologists.

Flicker

(At the Cultch’s Historic Theatre from May 25 to 29)

West Coast graphic design, projected environments, masks, and live-action shadow dance: the aboriginal Dancers of Damelahamid take their work into new multimedia territory as they conjure the spirit world of the title character.

The Draw: Watching coastal art and dance intersect with the high-tech digital age.

Target Audience: Those who want to see ancient forms speak to a new generation.