Cover Story: Top 5 dance performances

1 To Air is Human, Beacon Dance The final chapter of D Patton White’s brilliant four-part epic, The Elemental Project, sent dancers in billowing white in search for the secrets of freedom and flight.

2 Hamlet, Atlanta Ballet Hot and lethal, Hamlet and Laertes danced their homicidal human tragedy before a backdrop of choreographer Stephen Mills’ cool geometric movement studies set to the minimalist tones of Philip Glass.

3 Triptych for V, Anna Leo Reflections on mother-daughter bonds and rites of passage inspired this elegant and eloquent dance of masterful modern movement.

4 Farewell Rituals, Blake Beckham and Adam Overton Before leaving us for grad school, two of Atlanta’s finest avant-garde performers said goodbye with a poignant ceremony of ingenious movement studies, altered biorhythm beats and a gallery installation of memories.

5 Pulse, Duende Dance and Coriolis Dance Project The perennial partnering of these two companies produced the intelligent interplays and investigations of Elizabeth Dishman’s “Reflex Meditations” and the poetic political lament of Amanda Exley Lower’s “Hunger.”