What a difference 24 hours can make. The first night of ABT’s pick‘n’mix season – 10 ballets in six days – veered from “fine” on downwards. Another opening, another show, though, and things have picked up very nicely indeed. Ballet Theatre has on display in this programme its peerless historical range, from Antony Tudor’s Jardin aux Lilas (mounted on the company in 1940), through Balanchine’s Theme and Variations (choreographed for them in 1947), his 1960 Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux and finally, and most wonderfully, Paul Taylor’s miraculous Company B: a piece that makes you want to dance, to sing, and fills you with a sorrowing pity, all at the same time.

What a difference 24 hours can make. The first night of ABT’s pick‘n’mix season – 10 ballets in six days – veered from “fine” on downwards. Another opening, another show, though, and things have picked up very nicely indeed. Ballet Theatre has on display in this programme its peerless historical range, from Antony Tudor’s Jardin aux Lilas (mounted on the company in 1940), through Balanchine’s Theme and Variations (choreographed for them in 1947), his 1960 Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux and finally, and most wonderfully, Paul Taylor’s miraculous Company B: a piece that makes you want to dance, to sing, and fills you with a sorrowing pity, all at the same time.

Was it the worst-played and worst-danced performance of Duo Concertant I’ve ever seen? I can’t remember a direr in my experience of quite a few DCs. But then the opening night of American Ballet Theatre’s London tour was a set of fine promises falling flat with a thud. A delicate new sextet ruined by the piano player. A masterpiece of musical ballet murdered by the violinist, the pianist and the ballerina. A cod-ballet duet by Twyla Tharp deflated by an unhumorous leading lady. And the only tick - inasmuch as at least the dancers gave it what it needed - was a piece of ensemble window-dressing that ticked the “modern” boxes that used to pertain two decades ago.

The 2011 season at Sadler’s Wells features attractions including horses and mass nudity on stage, the Pet Shop Boys' first ballet, William Forsythe, New York's American Ballet Theatre, the usual hip hop, flamenco and tango seasons, and generous helpings of Belgian and Catalan contemporary dance. Full listings guide below.

What a stunning show Matthew Bourne has created in his Blitz-era Cinderella - truly a magical ride created from what was in its original 1997 form a pumpkin waiting to be transformed. This must be the most heartwarming and sophisticatedly rewarding Christmas show in London, filled with a huge love of the city and a moving homage to humanity in wartime.

If only such a bubble of foolish hype did not follow Wayne McGregor wherever he goes, such bloated talk of reinventing dance, injecting it with brains, and infusing it with new chemical sensitivities and practically supernatural powers, one would be able to look at what his contribution to theatre is more clearly. He is not the Heston Blumenthal of dance.

“Nice is different from good,” sings one of Stephen Sondheim’s characters. And mostly, it is different, “nice” rarely being “good”. Christopher Bruce, however, blows that theory right out of the water, because Hush, his 2006 piece which opens Rambert’s Sadler’s Wells season, is both good and nice. And that’s much more remarkable than it seems: attempting to find the beauty, the depth and the radiance of “good” has caused many great artists to stumble. That Bruce achieves his goals with such serenity and power seems little short of miraculous.

The spring 2011 season at Sadler’s Wells opens booking on 15 November. Featured attractions include horses and mass nudity on stage, the Pet Shop Boys' first ballet, William Forsythe, New York's American Ballet Theatre, the usual hip hop, flamenco and tango seasons, and generous helpings of Belgian and Catalan contemporary dance. Full season guide below.

How do young modern choreographers engage with their audience? With references from the street - motion that the audience knows and recognises? With musical expressiveness? With the development of a technical style that has a language of its own? How about with an instinct, a yearning to entertain? Surely not!

Iphigenia is an abandoned child, almost murdered by her father, lost in bewilderment, captured and indoctrinated in an artificial existence. It hardly matters that her father was the legendary Greek hero Agamemnon, her mother the notorious Clytemnestra.

Sadler’s Wells launched their 2011 season this morning with a warning that the front-loading of arts cuts to the next two years will cut a swathe through the British arts landscape.