E-Mail This Article to a Friend Something old, something new COMPILED BY JEFFREY GANTZ

Old reliables like Boston Ballet, Alvin Ailey, Paul Taylor, and (old?) Savion Glover were joined this year by some new performance spaces, most notably the Opera House for the Ballet’s Nutcracker and Zero Arrow Theatre, which hosted Ronald K. Brown, Vincent Mantsoe, Robert Battle, and more. But we also bid farewell to the Dance Collective. Here’s the best of 2005 as seen by Marcia B. Siegel, Jeffrey Gantz, and Debra Cash.

1 INVOKING THE SPIRITS

There hasn’t been an American modern-dance choreographer since Ruth St. Denis as committed to a spiritual journey as Ronald K. Brown, as we saw when he brought his company Evidence to Zero Arrow Theatre. Brown has developed a remarkable movement style that draws on West African and African-diasporic traditions plus an array of other sources. No one else’s dance looks like this, and though he’s choreographed for other companies, it’s his own chamber group who perform it with galvanic authenticity.

2 CHEEKY TOES

Mark Morris, who brought From Old Seville, Silhouettes, Rock of Ages, Somebody’s Coming To See Me Tonight, and Rhymes with Silver to the Shubert Theatre, splashes a postmodern irreverence into his old and new dances, and that keeps them from complacency. He’s too mainstream now to be thought of as a true subversive, but he’s constantly playing against your expectations. You may not notice he’s doing this because his dance rides so securely on its musical accompaniments, but then all of a sudden you realize you’re not looking at a carbon copy of your memories.

3 AILEY SPIRIT

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, which made its annual visit to the Wang Theatre in April, has a lot to be proud of in its 47th year. Not just a dance company, it’s become a proper noun signifying successful black artistic and educational enterprise. An Ailey performance evokes enthusiasm bordering on hysteria in its audience and a sense of mission joyfully shared. Ailey is not just popular modern dance, it’s a social victory in a time of tarnished ideals.

4 TAPSTRAVAGANZA

Savion Glover, who came to the Majestic in May, is one of the greats. Fifty years from now, people will remember his performances with awe and mistrust. Could anyone have danced for 45 minutes non-stop with such a continuous flow of inspiration? Did he really do those remarkable feats of daring, intricacy, and stamina? Did he actually tap, sing, and carry on a sophisticated give-and-take with four musician partners all at the same time? Yes he did.

5 AMERICAN GOTHIC

For his 50th-anniversary season, Paul Taylor revived two of his best, baddest dances, Big Bertha and Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rehearsal), and he brought them to the Shubert Theatre. His new piece, Klezmerbluegrass, had you waiting for the sting of cold steel under the ribs, but it never came. Big Bertha and Sacre, however, remain devastating critiques of American culture.

6 SUMMER IN THE CITY

Even as Jacob’s Pillow continued to flourish in the Berkshires, Concord Summer Stages continued to offer thought-provoking summer dance closer to home: Dan Dorfman, Neil Greenberg, and Dana Reitz’s new Sea Walk, with remarkable performances by Reitz, Sara Rudner, and Christine Uchida.

7 HORSING AROUND

Don’t let anyone tell you horses can’t dance. The classic art of dressage teaches them the dancerly skills of stepwork, jumping, and precision drill — and something else, the knack of performing. The Canadian spectacle Cavalia, which arrived in September and took up residence in a big white tent at Suffolk Downs, was much more than a fancy horse show, with aerial choreography, acrobatics, and panoramic mass movements, but what stuck was the sight of a man and a horse strolling together in companionable unison.

8 CONNECTING THE ELEMENTS

South Africa’s Vincent Mantsoe, who appeared at Zero Arrow Theatre in September, can treat you like his comrade, even though his artistry is so phenomenal you can’t believe you’re in the same room with him. His dance is built on the whole of human experience. In his performance you encounter people, animals, nature; the jungle, the village, the city; the tribe and the individual; magic, memory, ritual, simple sensuality and sophisticated cultural forms. With the help of only a few props and lighting effects, he embodies them all right before your eyes.

9 FALLING ANGELS?

The vagaries of season scheduling meant that we got only five productions from Boston Ballet in 2005–2006: La Sylphide, Sleeping Beauty, James Kudelka’s Cinderella, a "Falling Angels" rep program of Lucinda Childs, Jirí Kylián, and William Forsythe, and The Nutcracker, which, looking more comfortable in its new home at the Opera House, was closer to the production that ran at the Wang Theatre for 35 years than to last year’s scaled-down version at the Colonial. Nothing blew your leg warmers off, but Sylphide was creditable and Beauty was solid, the Cinderella gave Prokofiev’s score an intriguing new look with a snazzy, jazzy second act, and former Boston Ballet School student and current New York City Ballet principal Damian Woetzel came home for two Nutcracker performances.

10) BEST OF THE REST

Brian Crabtree at the Dance Complex; Seán Curran at the Tsai Performance Center; Flamenco da cámara at the Majestic Theatre; Robert Battle’s Battleworks at Zero Arrow Theatre; Çudamani at Sanders Theatre; Fico Balet at Green Street Studios; Anna Myer at Boston Ballet’s top-floor studio.