10 essential dance shows to book tickets for this summer

Flamenco Festival 2019

This annual jamboree launches with flamenco superstar Sara Baras and her new show, Sombras (July 2-7), which sets out to reclaim “farruca” – a flavour of flamenco music traditionally only danced to by men – for her own sex. If anyone can do it, this force-of-nature performer can. Other big names on the line-up include Miguel Povida and Rocío Molina.

Sadler’s Wells, London EC1 (020 7863 8000), from July 2 to July 14

Invisible Cities

Contemporary dance master Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (of Sutra fame) teams up with adaptor Lolita Chakrabarti and Rambert to turn Italo Calvino’s mysterious 1972 novel into a site-specific show for the Manchester International Festival, the site in question being a former railway depot.

Mayfield, Manchester (0333 320 2890), from July 4 to July 14

Claire Cunningham

Choreographer Claire Cunningham and her troupe of disabled performers set out to lift the lid on the world of the Elvis tribute artist in a new piece, Thank You Very Much.

Ukrainian Cultural Centre, Manchester (0333 320 2890), from July 17 to 20

Ballet Under the Stars

If it works for opera, why not for dance? Ballet gets the charming country-house treatment at Hatch House, near Salisbury, with performers including the Royal Ballet’s Lauren Cuthbertson and Steven McRae and the Mariinsky’s Xander Parish on the line-up for this 10th-anniversary celebratory programme.

Hatch House, Wiltshire (01749 813313), from July 25 to July 28

Bolshoi Ballet

The Bolshoi company was on fantastic form when it last visited Covent Garden in 2016. It’s bringing plenty of bright new stars this time round, to perform four works: two Petipa staples (Swan Lake and Don Quixote), a light-hearted rarity (The Bright Stream), and that barnstorming Soviet-era creation Spartacus. An embarrassment of riches awaits.

Royal Opera House, London WC2 (020 7304 4000), from July 29 to Aug 17

Scottish Ballet

Choreographer Helen Picket adapts Arthur Miller’s tale of terrifying groupthink during the Salem Witch Trials, The Crucible. The score is by Peter Salem, who wrote the excellent music for Scottish Ballet’s first-rate 2015 adaptation of another great American play, A Streetcar Named Desire.

Edinburgh Playhouse (0131 473 2000), from Aug 3 to Aug 5

ISH Dance Collective

Break-dance, in-line skating, skateboarding, BMX, freerunning, and even something called freestyle basketball combine in Elements of Freestyle, the latest show from this Dutch company. It promises to be a high-octane, family-friendly affair.

Edinburgh International Conference Centre (0131 226 0000), from Aug 3 to 25

Matthew Bourne’s Romeo and Juliet

Prokofiev’s wonderful music is the only truly great full-length ballet score that Matthew Bourne has never previously tackled. Add to this Bourne’s unique record with putting a fresh spin on famous tales, the tantalising fact that he has ditched the Capulets and set the action in some oppressive institution, and the astonishingly young cast he is here deploying, and this has all the makings of the dance event of the year.

Sadler’s Wells, London EC1 (020 7863 8000), from Aug 7 to Aug 31

Trisha Brown Dance Company

A reimagining of short pieces by the pioneering avant-gardist Trisha Brown, staged in a delightful sculpture park. Brown was a keen tree-climber in her youth (a fact that infuses much of her work), so the setting could hardly be more appropriate.

Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh (0131 473 2000), from Aug 9 to Aug 11

Peacock Contemporary Dance Company

Chinese choreographer Lang Liping reinterprets Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring through the prism of Tibetan concepts of the cycles of life, while her compatriot He Xuntian bookends that famous ballet score with compositions of his own. With designs by Tim Yip, who won an Oscar for his work on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Edinburgh Playhouse (0131 473 2000), from Aug 22 to Aug 24