Anniversaries, birthdays were uplifting events

Birthday candles and anniversary celebrations lit up the year in dance, and the region's audiences were the beneficiaries.

Mark Morris celebrated his 50th birthday, along with the 25th anniversary of his acclaimed company, at Jacob's Pillow over the summer. And the program featured a rare performance by Morris himself in the flamenco-inspired "From Old Seville." The burly dancer/choreographer's nimble play of weight, dynamics, and gestural nuance gave the lighthearted work not only flair but heart. Accompanying it, a vivid performance of Morris's "Gloria," set to Vivaldi, showed why this stirring work is still the company's signature piece after a quarter century.

Morris kicked off the year by bringing his company to Boston for performances of the brilliant "L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato," one of the undisputed masterpieces of modern dance. And in March, he set the world premiere of "Up and Down" at Boston Ballet, two decades after the company commissioned a premiere from the young choreographer.

On the local modern dance scene, veteran teacher/choreographer Marcus Schulkind celebrated four decades as a dance maker with an engaging concert of career-spanning solos featuring some of his favorite performers. Though Schulkind officially retired a few years ago, he's still turning out some of his best pieces, like the insouciant "Allemande" he created for Elizabeth Waterhouse .

Jose Mateo's Ballet Theatre celebrated 20 fruitful years as the only ballet company in New England devoted to the repertory -- more than 80 ballets -- of a single resident choreographer. An unprecedented yearlong retrospective of concerts showcased Mateo's clear, elegantly structured choreography in a style he calls "New Classicism."

The 15 - year-old Dance Complex celebrated not a birthday but an emancipation : After years of legal wrangling with deed-holder the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center, the volunteer-based, artist-run Dance Complex now has full ownership of its historic Central Square building, which has served as a cherished crucible for modern dance activity in the Boston area.

On a grander scale, under the visionary direction of Mikko Nissinen , Boston Ballet continued to stretch, programming new works by provocative choreographers such as Jorma Elo ("Carmen" ) as well as treasured classics. The company's production of Rudolf Nureyev's "Don Quixote" was a busy, spirited confection, packed with excellent performances throughout the ranks.

Meanwhile one of the year's most delightful new works was commissioned for (and given a dynamite performance by) the students of the Boston Conservatory: Sean Curran's saucy, wildly imaginative setting of Stravinsky's "Pulcinella." It's a testament to the Conservatory that it nurtures this kind of creativity.

The Boston Cyberarts Festival came up with a spectacular find this year in the thrilling Myrna Packer/Art Bridgman collaboration "Under the Skin," a fluid blend of the real and virtual worlds in an eye-popping experience that was technologically clever, imaginative, and emotionally resonant.

World Music/CRASHarts continued to bring to Boston some of the most adventurous companies from around the world. A highlight was the Flamenco Festival, which presented Spain's Noche Flamenca , a company that powerfully epitomizes the pure flamenco style: raw, spontaneous movement that unfurls in the moment yet is grounded in a centuries-old tradition.

Bank of America Celebrity Series brought two blockbusters to town -- the Kirov Ballet's "Swan Lake" and the Royal Ballet's "Manon," featuring Brookline native Sarah Lamb -- both dazzling productions that represented major marks on Boston's cultural map. Yet the series' recent loss of Bank of America's sponsorship will seriously dim dance prospects for the future. The organization has stated that it will not be able to present an international dance company in the future, after presenting not only the Kirov and the Royal, but the Bolshoi in recent years. It is unclear how the sponsorship loss will affect the presentation of local companies and other domestic troupes that have become Celebrity Series staples, such as Pilobolus and the Paul Taylor Dance Company.

During the summer, Concord Academy's Summer Stages Dance brought top-notch creators such as John Jasperse and Karole Armitage not only to perform but to teach, providing the area with a fertile dance oasis.

But the summer's biggest draw continued to be Jacob's Pillow, one of the country's top destinations for dance and just two hours down the Pike. The festival was rich in dance of wide-ranging aesthetics from around the world, but three performances will live in this reviewer's memory for a long time.

Tero Saarinen's Finnish company collaborated with the superb singers of the Boston Camerata for the US premiere of "Borrowed Light," a breathtaking, luminous work of stark simplicity inspired by the Shakers. Danish Dance Theatre brought two US premieres, Tim Rushton's viscerally thrilling "Silent Steps," which sent the talented company soaring with delicious abandon, and the somber, theatrical "Kridt," its trails of chalk dust tracing a sense of dislocation and despair. And Shen Wei Dance Arts' mesmerizing "The Map" was a study in perpetual motion that brought together the Chinese-born choreographer's love of dance, Chinese opera, theater, and the visual arts.