Critics' Choice: Joffrey Ballet. Highly Recommended: Aloft

Dance listings are compiled by Laura Molzahn from information received by Monday. Please submit events (include phone numbers) to dance@chicagoreader.com or Dance Listings, Chicago Reader, 11 E. Illinois, Chicago 60611.

ALOFT Shayna Swanson and her aerial dance company turn their space into "the timeless great room of a wealthy but broken family" for this show of new work, The Dinner of Our Discontent. 5/16-5/25: Fri-Sun 8 PM, Aloft Loft, 941 N. California (in the back), 773-507-2604, $20.

HEDWIG DANCES The spring concert, celebrating the troupe's 24th season, features artistic director Jan Bartoszek's ne work Earthly Tongues. Fri-Sat 5/16-5/17, 8 PM, Ruth Page Center for the Arts, 1016 N. Dearborn, 312-337-6543, $15-$22.

MARQUEZ DANCE PROJECT AND NICOLE GIFFORD DANCE The two companies join for the Changing Flight Dance Concert. Marquez Dance Project artistic director Jennifer Sandoval premieres Openings; Nancy Gifford premieres her piece Migration. Thu-Fri 5/8-5/9, 7:30 PM, Hamlin Park, field house, 3035 N. Hoyne, 312-952-3615, $15.

REPERTORY PERFORMANCE WORKSHOP AND FACULTY CONCERT Students perform works by Twyla Tharp, Doris Humphrey, Shirley Mordine, Kate Corby, Ni'Ja Whitson, and Ariel Cisneros, and faculty members. Thu-Fri 5/8-5/9, 8 PM (postshow reception Friday), Dance Center of Columbia College, 1306 S. Michigan, 312-344-8300.

JOFFREY BALLET Choreographer Paul Taylor can be a straight arrow or a risk taker. In his 1976 Cloven Kingdom -- which the Joffrey is performing for the first time since 1989 on its "American Moderns" program -- he's both. This muscular, arch dance gravitates toward the polite and graceful but keeps detouring into odd and awkward -- shifts that add buzz to both modes. Courtly stepping and curtsies morph seamlessly into moves that suggest an expertly executed funky chicken, and when the tuxedoed or gowned dancers don reflective headgear, they look as if they've stepped off a spaceship. The likewise schizophrenic score cuts back and forth, sometimes second by second, between the baroque strains of Arcangelo Corelli and modern percussion compositions by Henry Cowell and Malloy Miller. The program also includes the company premieres of Twyla Tharp's 1994 Waterbaby Bagatelles (which the New York Times's Anna Kisselgoff described as "terrific even by the best Tharp standards") and Lar Lubovitch's ".Ê.Ê.ÊSmile With My Heart," as well as a revival of Mehmet Sander's Inner Space. Opens Wed 5/14, 7:30 PM. Through 5/25: Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 2 and 7:30 PM, Sun 2 PM, Auditorium Theatre, 50 E. Congress, 312-902-1500, $25-$140. --Laura Molzahn .