Second album, second novel, second tour programme – the follow-up is always tricky. But the timing couldn’t be better for Acosta Danza, the Havana-based dance company which made its UK debut in 2017. These 20 young Cubans, handpicked by Carlos Acosta and bursting with talent, can’t know how badly the UK needs a shot of their sunny optimism right now.

Sometimes a dance talent arrives that causes the ground to shift and alters the landscape. Natalia Osipova is one such. Not content to be queen of all she surveys at the Royal Ballet, she is hungry for new territory.

As a mood-lifter, it’s hard to beat the opening of Concerto. Against a primrose sky, figures in daffodil, tangerine and brick form lozenges of fizzing colour, foregrounded by a leading couple so buoyant their heels barely ever touch down.

The magnificent, controversial Cuban ballerina Alicia Alonso, who asserted that she would live to 200, died yesterday in Havana, aged nearly 99.

This programme of three short works is all about influence, specifically the supposed cross currents between ballet and contemporary dance in the latter half of the 20th century. The irony is that this is the first time that the Royal Ballet has presented a piece made by the great American dance pioneer and experimenter Merce Cunningham, whose centenary this marks.

The most arresting thing about Dada Masilo’s contemporary South African take on Giselle is Masilo herself. Tiny and boyishly slight, she inhabits her own fast, fidgety, tribal-inspired choreography with the intensity of someone in a trance.

The Royal Ballet’s choice of season opener could be dismissed as safe and predictable. But as the glorious naturalistic detail of 1830s Paris unfolds in Kenneth MacMillan’s 1974 retelling, you see the reasoning. It’s only a year since the Royal Opera House remodelled its ground floor spaces to be more welcoming, and Manon is the ideal first-time ballet.

There was a time when hip hop in a theatre was all about showing off. It was about dancers spinning on their head or their elbow so fast and for so long that the audience gaped in disbelief. Although it had long ago migrated from the concrete stairwells of inner city estates, the culture remained rooted in the idea of a battle, a dance-off, a show of virtuosity.

The Ailey company is that rare thing – a dance legend that’s even better than you remember. While no one forgets their first encounter with America’s No.1 touring troupe and its unique mix of ballet, modern, jazz, street, and all-round athletic fabulousness, repeat viewings only increase one’s respect.

There is no equivalent of the Ailey phenomenon. This is a modern dance company with a New York square named after it. It’s a dance company that has performed at the inauguration of two presidents. Its calling card, Revelations, a suite of dances first performed in 1960, is the most-watched modern dance work anywhere, ever.