But the windows are beginning to crack open. The company’s artistic director, Judith Jamison, once a great Ailey star, is exposing her wonderful dancers, and her loyal audience, to outsiders—in this case, Karole Armitage and Twyla Tharp. The results are mixed, but the concept is a healthy one. Dancers thrive on new challenges and rarely seem to mind—or even notice—whether what they’re being challenged with has merit.

Armitage’s Gamelan Gardens is a new piece, and like most Armitage pieces I’ve seen, it’s intelligently put together but lacking a strong personal voice; in fact, it suggests all too many other voices. It’s driven less by a personal vocabulary than by its powerful music, Lou Harrison’s Double Concerto for Violin and Cello with Javanese Gamelan, but there’s too much music for what Armitage can bring to it, so the piece drags on beyond what its virtues can sustain. (There’s a big finale, you think it’s all over, and then it starts up again, with a kind of Dances at a Gathering portentous walkabout, with one dancer touching the floor significantly, etc.) The central pas de deux, danced by the attractive Courtney Brené Corbin and Glenn Allen Sims, was dutifully sinuous—and dull. In a way, Armitage makes sense for Ailey, because she too is based on a mix of modern-dance athleticism and ballet—go-for-broke gymnastics decorated by conscientiously pointed feet.

As for Tharp, she gave the company The Golden Section—the 15-minute climax to (and all that’s left of) her ambitious The Catherine Wheel from 1981. This is a whirlwind of Tharpian off-kilter flings and death-defying lifts, somewhat in the mode of In the Upper Room, and it’s a challenge to any group of dancers who risk it. The Aileys had the right idea and they tried hard, but you could see they were scared—and who can blame them? I saw both casts, and they both were tentative—which means they don’t look like Tharp. (No one’s ever called her tentative.) The piece was staged by the celebrated onetime Tharp dancer Shelley Washington—it’s a specialty of hers—and staged properly, but it’s clear that there hasn’t been enough rehearsal time to make either cast of 13 feel secure. And Tharp doesn’t come naturally to them, the way Armitage seems to. Still, it was a pleasure to see these brave and brilliant dancers giving their all in a work of such quality.

The season’s other new piece is by Uri Sands, an Ailey alumnus, and its title—Existence Without Form—isn’t promising. But the dance itself has form. It’s a group piece, interrupted by an entrancing duet for two of Ailey’s most exciting girls: the ravishing Alicia J. Graf, the company’s recent refugee from ballet, and the powerful, passionate Hope Boykin. Graf is tall and thin, Boykin short and compact, and they complement each other in their playful musicality. The music (by Christian Matjias) is called Na razie, bez Ciebie, which might give a clue to Sands’ intentions if we knew what it meant. Even so, a happy surprise.

Two revivals: Portrait of Billie (John Butler, 1959), in which poor Lady Day suffers all over again as she’s done in so many books, movies and plays, to say nothing of real life. It’s a period piece, worth a look at every decade or so. And Ailey’s 1979 Memoria: “In Memory—In Celebration” of “the wild spirit of my friend, Joyce Trisler.” (Trisler, who died the year it was made, was a dancer/choreographer who, like Ailey himself, was a pupil and follower of Lester Horton.) A spirit on her way to heaven (?) weaves solemnly through a group of sympathetic angels (?). She’s danced by Wendy White Sasser, who grows more impressive with every season. Eventually, she arrives Up There, and now she’s in bright red and everyone’s having a grand old time …. I guess this part is the “Celebration.” The whole effort is disorganized and messy, a sad example of Ailey’s loss of powers.

The old Ailey order is passing—only about a third of the dancers have been around for more than half a dozen years—and new waves of talented youngsters are surfacing from the school and the second company. Plus, of course, Alicia Graf. She’s never going to be echt Ailey, but she’s a special new star in the Ailey firmament.

AND NUTCRACKER? YOU MAY HAVE SEEN weak dancers in it, but you’ve never seen a bad overall performance—the music is so glorious, the mechanics so perfect, the mood (or, rather, moods) so affecting, the story so resonant. What City Ballet obsessives follow obsessively is the casting of new dancers in important roles: During these endless Tchaikovskian weeks, and usually at tot-dominated matinees, new Sugar Plums and Dewdrops occasionally turn up—this season, two of the first, one of the second. And since these are the young women the company is singling out, we watch them with all the attention of Cold War Kremlinologists.

The two new Sugar Plums are very unalike. Sterling Hyltin, newly a soloist, is flush with energy and daring—she goes all the way, and occasionally it’s too far: Her partner, the talented Andrew Veyette, had some rocky moments when she tore into things (and him). But she gave a radiant performance, sailing through the great duet with daring and elegance. And Veyette’s series of jetés around the stage in the coda were smooth and vibrant. These two are well on their way.

Hyltin’s Sugar Plum was exciting; Ana Sophia Scheller’s was lovely. Still in the corps, Scheller is small, delicate, serene—and a beautifully secure classicist. She was restrained in her first solo, but sweetly welcoming and attentive to the little Prince and Princess. In the duet (with Tyler Angle), she retained her technical aplomb while glowing with openness of spirit and generosity. She’s a less well-known quantity than Hyltin, and equally promising. Good things lie ahead for both these young women—and us.

Sara Mearns, who last year was on the fastest of fast tracks, is just all wrong for Dewdrop. She’s more a lyrical dancer than a dynamic one; given her increasing tendency to plumpness, she’s at a disadvantage in Karinska’s great costume, originally designed for the tall, super-thin, elegant Tanaquil LeClercq; and she has no jump—an essential Dewdrop characteristic. Another current Dewdrop, Megan Fairchild, is also jumpless. So if you’re going to Nutcracker this season, hope for the real thing in Dewdrops: Ashley Bouder.

There were exemplary performances of many subsidiary Nutcracker roles. Aaron Severini brought slight but highly musical changes of emphasis to the Soldier doll; Georgina Pazcoguin (in a debut) was appropriately exotic and sexy as Coffee, without wandering over the line into vampy camp; Sean Suozzi was manly and exciting as Candy Cane; Ashley Laracey (another debut) was a delectable Marzipan.

As Herr Dross-elmeier, Kyle Froman had authority and vigor, though he does much too much with his hands. In the same role, Adam Hendrickson was youthful and playful, but he committed a crime against the fabric of the ballet: Towards the end of the party scene, Drosselmeier has a moment with the grandmother, but instead of partnering her in a scrap of traditional 19th-century social dancing the way Froman does, Hendrickson stood next to her, twisting the night away and grinning. This isn’t innovative; it’s aberrational. Speak up and clamp down, ballet-masters and -mistresses; I know you’re there in the wings, watching.

I see her as trendy, imitative. Try this, try that—dance is a smorgasbord, a salad bar, so stick a little of everything on your plate. Armitage’s approach isn’t so much “Anything you can do, I can do better,” as “Anything you do, I’ll do too.” Because she’s intelligent and can put steps together, I keep hoping she’ll put them together to some purpose, but for me that purpose never reveals itself. Or to put it another way, I don’t detect a language that’s recognizably hers. I see efficiency, I see conviction, but I don’t see an interesting talent.

Currently, her company—irritatingly called “Armitage Gone! Dance”—is at the Duke with a long, lowercase piece called in this dream that dogs me. The workable music is by Annie Gosfield, credited as the “Composer/Sampler.” The décor—a long silver pipe snaking across a red backdrop—is by David Salle. (Earlier collaborators include such other A-list names as Christian Lacroix, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Madonna and Jeff Koons. Get the picture?) There are five principal dancers, presumably chosen to look as unmatched as possible—they come from five different worlds. And a small group of very young guest dancers turns up at the end, all eager for the treat.

At the start, the handsome Theresa Ruth Howard dominates the three leading men one after another and all together—the movement is urgent, aggressive, suggestive, picked up from anywhere and everywhere, including tai chi, athletics, jazz, generic Eurodance. The second (and best) part features the cellist, Felix Fan, stripped to his sweatpants and seated in a chair on the stage, while the highly experienced Megumi Eda—a kind of steely, very thin She Who Must Be Obeyed—trifles with him. The final humiliation: She snatches his music away. ( That’ll fix him!) Then everyone gets together, including the new kids in town, in an energized but pointless finale.

Years ago, late one night, I was surfing cable TV and encountered a solo woman dancing what looked like Balanchine—or, rather, like very bad Balanchine pastiche. It turned out to be Karole Armitage. She’s still dropping bits of Balanchine into her work, as well as bits of Cunningham (she worked with them both, before setting out to conquer Europe), but if she ever understood what they were about, she’s forgotten. I salute her ambition, I salute her range, I salute her nerve. But if we’re counting on her to save ballet in America, we’re in even worse trouble than I thought we were.

Meanwhile, at B.A.M., Sasha Waltz—an echt European who reversed Armitage’s trajectory, spending time in New York during the 80’s—presented seven dancers in a revelatory piece to five of Schubert’s Impromptus and four of his songs. The surprise was that post-Pina German dance, concepts and all, can speak an original language, can be witty, can be moving … can be that old-fashioned thing, beautiful.

Impromptus is, first of all, striking in design—two tilted white platforms raised above the stage in unconventional juxtaposition, and a big floating gold parallelogram hanging behind them, from which dancers emerge and behind which they recede, and which eventually takes on a pendulum life of its own. The lighting, too, is exquisite in itself and wholly sensitive to the mood of the music and the dances.

One man, then another, comes forward and starts convulsing; at first you think you’re in for Euro-angst if not Euro-trash—but no, they’re too interesting. Then, when a man and a woman begin to dance together, you recognize immediately that Waltz has found a distinctive new vocabulary for suggesting human relationships—and when was the last time a choreographer could make that claim? Everything is fluent, intense and natural (as with all superior choreography, every movement seems inevitable). The way the dancers burrow into each other, partner each other in unprecedentedly complicated lifts that yet have no odor of sensationalism, tenderly use their feet to push off each other’s bodies—it all adds up to a new way of looking at how two people can be together. Even when the tone is sorrowful or aggressive, you’re swept joyously along—to begin with, of course, by Schubert’s glorious music, then by Waltz’s response to it. She may not choose to think of herself as deeply musical—in her statements, she seems more interested in ideas (you can take a dancer out of Europe but you can’t take Europe out of a dancer)—but she can’t help herself: Schubert got to her.

The first third of Impromptus is almost totally successful. Then things get more jokey. I don’t think I’d like to revisit the passage involving rubber boots filled with water, or all that body-painting and floor-smearing, though the scene in which two women strip (tactfully) and immerse themselves in a pool is unexpectedly novel, elegant and serene. (Those two lovely naked backs!) But even when concept takes over, Waltz’s control and intelligence make things palatable. Impromptus is 70 minutes long, and barely long enough.

It’s a far cry from the last Waltz epic to turn up at B.A.M., Körper (2002), with its turgid narratives and leaking body fluids. I fear that the heightened lyricism of Impromptus may prove to be a detour for Waltz, but they can’t take this one away from me.

As for The Nutcracker, yes, it’s that time of year. So much of the first act is set in stone that individual performances don’t affect it greatly, except for Herr Drosselmeier—who can be vaguely ominous (Andre Kramarevsky) or jolly-old-elfish (Robert La Fosse, sneaking a little swig in the middle of the party scene)—at least as long as the leading children are unaffected and charming. This year, all of them were good, and Isabella DeVivo was particularly lovely—her movement naturally elegant and full of feeling.

There were two important Sugarplum performances. One brought Jennie Somogyi back to the State Theater in her first major role since the dreadful injury that had kept her away for nearly two years. It was a big relief to have her with us again, even if she isn’t yet showing all her self-possession and command; the musicality and phrasing were there, but not yet her full amplitude. As for Teresa Reichlen in her debut performances, she’s a more natural Dewdrop than Sugarplum—she’s a jumper more than a turner—and she was a touch bland. (Someone might explain to her that she’s meant to react to the Little Prince’s miming of his defeat of the Mouse King.) But her dancing is full-scale, and her manner is appealing and genuine—the Smiling Sickness hasn’t struck. She and her cavalier, Ask la Cour, made a notably handsome couple, both of them tall, blond and slender. He’s not very strong and not much of a virtuoso—he’s not going to be the quick solution to the Company’s lack of male stars—but he’s an attractive presence and an attentive partner.

Some interesting performances: Melissa Barak’s Coffee, not at all the standard big-girl vamping, as if in some Maria Montez harem movie, but actually dancing the music. (She’s a choreographer, after all). Antonio Carmena, giving an extra (and, again, musical) snap to Tea. Sterling Hyltin, bringing crisp style and charm to Marzipan. And, most important, little Tiler Peck making her debut as Dewdrop. She’s dark, petite, a smiler (be careful, girl), but the important thing is that her dancing is clear and articulate—nothing exaggerated, everything in just proportion. Who knows how far she can go, but she’s already come a long way—and fast. Watching her was a particular pleasure after observing how self-conscious that powerhouse Ashley Bouder has become since her early triumphs in the role. She’s begun to exaggerate her punctuation and call attention to her remarkable technical prowess. Please, someone, stop her before she turns into Hurricane Ashley, laying waste to everything in her path.

I see her as trendy, imitative. Try this, try that—dance is a smorgasbord, a salad bar, so stick a little of everything on your plate. Armitage’s approach isn’t so much “Anything you can do, I can do better,” as “Anything you do, I’ll do too.” Because she’s intelligent and can put steps together, I keep hoping she’ll put them together to some purpose, but for me that purpose never reveals itself. Or to put it another way, I don’t detect a language that’s recognizably hers. I see efficiency, I see conviction, but I don’t see an interesting talent.

Currently, her company—irritatingly called “Armitage Gone! Dance”—is at the Duke with a long, lowercase piece called in this dream that dogs me. The workable music is by Annie Gosfield, credited as the “Composer/Sampler.” The décor—a long silver pipe snaking across a red backdrop—is by David Salle. (Earlier collaborators include such other A-list names as Christian Lacroix, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Madonna and Jeff Koons. Get the picture?) There are five principal dancers, presumably chosen to look as unmatched as possible—they come from five different worlds. And a small group of very young guest dancers turns up at the end, all eager for the treat.

At the start, the handsome Theresa Ruth Howard dominates the three leading men one after another and all together—the movement is urgent, aggressive, suggestive, picked up from anywhere and everywhere, including tai chi, athletics, jazz, generic Eurodance. The second (and best) part features the cellist, Felix Fan, stripped to his sweatpants and seated in a chair on the stage, while the highly experienced Megumi Eda—a kind of steely, very thin She Who Must Be Obeyed—trifles with him. The final humiliation: She snatches his music away. (That’ll fix him!) Then everyone gets together, including the new kids in town, in an energized but pointless finale.

Years ago, late one night, I was surfing cable TV and encountered a solo woman dancing what looked like Balanchine—or, rather, like very bad Balanchine pastiche. It turned out to be Karole Armitage. She’s still dropping bits of Balanchine into her work, as well as bits of Cunningham (she worked with them both, before setting out to conquer Europe), but if she ever understood what they were about, she’s forgotten. I salute her ambition, I salute her range, I salute her nerve. But if we’re counting on her to save ballet in America, we’re in even worse trouble than I thought we were.

Meanwhile, at B.A.M., Sasha Waltz—an echt European who reversed Armitage’s trajectory, spending time in New York during the 80’s—presented seven dancers in a revelatory piece to five of Schubert’s Impromptus and four of his songs. The surprise was that post-Pina German dance, concepts and all, can speak an original language, can be witty, can be moving … can be that old-fashioned thing, beautiful.

Impromptus is, first of all, striking in design—two tilted white platforms raised above the stage in unconventional juxtaposition, and a big floating gold parallelogram hanging behind them, from which dancers emerge and behind which they recede, and which eventually takes on a pendulum life of its own. The lighting, too, is exquisite in itself and wholly sensitive to the mood of the music and the dances.

One man, then another, comes forward and starts convulsing; at first you think you’re in for Euro-angst if not Euro-trash—but no, they’re too interesting. Then, when a man and a woman begin to dance together, you recognize immediately that Waltz has found a distinctive new vocabulary for suggesting human relationships—and when was the last time a choreographer could make that claim? Everything is fluent, intense and natural (as with all superior choreography, every movement seems inevitable). The way the dancers burrow into each other, partner each other in unprecedentedly complicated lifts that yet have no odor of sensationalism, tenderly use their feet to push off each other’s bodies—it all adds up to a new way of looking at how two people can be together. Even when the tone is sorrowful or aggressive, you’re swept joyously along—to begin with, of course, by Schubert’s glorious music, then by Waltz’s response to it. She may not choose to think of herself as deeply musical—in her statements, she seems more interested in ideas (you can take a dancer out of Europe but you can’t take Europe out of a dancer)—but she can’t help herself: Schubert got to her.

The first third of Impromptus is almost totally successful. Then things get more jokey. I don’t think I’d like to revisit the passage involving rubber boots filled with water, or all that body-painting and floor-smearing, though the scene in which two women strip (tactfully) and immerse themselves in a pool is unexpectedly novel, elegant and serene. (Those two lovely naked backs!) But even when concept takes over, Waltz’s control and intelligence make things palatable. Impromptus is 70 minutes long, and barely long enough.

It’s a far cry from the last Waltz epic to turn up at B.A.M., Körper (2002), with its turgid narratives and leaking body fluids. I fear that the heightened lyricism of Impromptus may prove to be a detour for Waltz, but they can’t take this one away from me.

As for The Nutcracker, yes, it’s that time of year. So much of the first act is set in stone that individual performances don’t affect it greatly, except for Herr Drosselmeier—who can be vaguely ominous (Andre Kramarevsky) or jolly-old-elfish (Robert La Fosse, sneaking a little swig in the middle of the party scene)—at least as long as the leading children are unaffected and charming. This year, all of them were good, and Isabella DeVivo was particularly lovely—her movement naturally elegant and full of feeling.

There were two important Sugarplum performances. One brought Jennie Somogyi back to the State Theater in her first major role since the dreadful injury that had kept her away for nearly two years. It was a big relief to have her with us again, even if she isn’t yet showing all her self-possession and command; the musicality and phrasing were there, but not yet her full amplitude. As for Teresa Reichlen in her debut performances, she’s a more natural Dewdrop than Sugarplum—she’s a jumper more than a turner—and she was a touch bland. (Someone might explain to her that she’s meant to react to the Little Prince’s miming of his defeat of the Mouse King.) But her dancing is full-scale, and her manner is appealing and genuine—the Smiling Sickness hasn’t struck. She and her cavalier, Ask la Cour, made a notably handsome couple, both of them tall, blond and slender. He’s not very strong and not much of a virtuoso—he’s not going to be the quick solution to the Company’s lack of male stars—but he’s an attractive presence and an attentive partner.

Some interesting performances: Melissa Barak’s Coffee, not at all the standard big-girl vamping, as if in some Maria Montez harem movie, but actually dancing the music. (She’s a choreographer, after all). Antonio Carmena, giving an extra (and, again, musical) snap to Tea. Sterling Hyltin, bringing crisp style and charm to Marzipan. And, most important, little Tiler Peck making her debut as Dewdrop. She’s dark, petite, a smiler (be careful, girl), but the important thing is that her dancing is clear and articulate—nothing exaggerated, everything in just proportion. Who knows how far she can go, but she’s already come a long way—and fast. Watching her was a particular pleasure after observing how self-conscious that powerhouse Ashley Bouder has become since her early triumphs in the role. She’s begun to exaggerate her punctuation and call attention to her remarkable technical prowess. Please, someone, stop her before she turns into Hurricane Ashley, laying waste to everything in her path.