The fall dance scene looks a little unusual this year: Typically, Cal Performances boasts a blockbuster parade of dance visitors, but their dance headliners aren’t coming until winter and spring. Instead, autumn’s big touring attractions are down at Stanford Live, with Japan’s mesmerizing Sankai Juku and England’s newsmaking Akram Khan both slated for appearances.

These international artists are bound to bring provocative perspectives to our local dance scene, which is teeming with ambitious new work, ranging from the sensuality of Amy Foley’s Bellwether Dance Project to the sociological insights of Jo Kreiter’s Flyaway Productions.

Ambrose Tataris and Driven Arts Collective

Tenderloin venue CounterPulse gives artists space and time to explore the intersection of dance and technology through its ARC Combustible lab. At this year’s culmination, Ambrose Trataris AKA DestroyHerr will present work combining drag artists and avatars, while Driven Arts Collective’s premiere plunges the audience into a “bio-sensing network” and “emotion recognition technologies.”

8 p.m. Thursday-Friday, Sept. 7-8 and 14-15, 2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 9 and 16. $20-$35. CounterPulse, 80 Turk St., S.F.www.counterpulse.org

Bellwether Dance Project

If you saw Amy Foley dance during her career with Robert Moses’ Kin, you’d never forget her; small and sharp, fierce and fast, she’s one of the all-time great San Francisco dancers. After a COVID-19 hiatus, her Bellwether Dance Project is finally back for a second home season with two premieres alongside “Let Slip the Witches,” an eerie and compositionally transfixing long dance from 2019.

7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, Sept. 14-16. $25-$45. ODC Theater, 3153 17th St., S.F.www.bellwetherdanceproject.org

Smuin Contemporary Ballet

The high-personality troupe launches its 30th anniversary season with a big name: Darrell Grand Moultrie, the in-demand New York-based choreographer, who is working with Cuban jazz for his premiere. James Kudelka’s “The Man in Black,” to the music of Johnny Cash, makes a return along with Val Caniparoli’s whimsical “Tutto Eccetto il Lavandino (everything but the kitchen sink).”

7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 15 and 2 p.m. Saturday, Sept 16. $25-$89. Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek.•7:30 p.m. Thursday-Friday, Sept. 21-22, 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 23, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 24. Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro St., Mountain View.•7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 29; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 30; 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 1; 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, Oct. 5-7. Cowell Theater, Fort Mason Center for the Arts and Culture, 2 Marina Blvd., S.F.www.smuinballet.org.

Parya Saberi and Suhaila Salimpour

Choreographer Parya Saberi, who emigrated from Iran, takes inspiration from poetry and pays tribute to the lives of Iranian women in “Dancing With Hafez,” featuring 10 dancers and live music. The well-known belly dancer and dance educator Suhaila Salimpour also contributes to the production, in which small audience groups will be led through various spaces of Dance Mission Theater, with sets in each locale evoking Iranian gardens.

8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, Sept. 15-16; 7 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 17. $30-$50. Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St., S.F.www.parya.dance

Chitresh Das Institute

夏洛特东湾,deceas的弟子ed kathak master Chitresh Das, passes his legacy of charisma, rhythmic virtuosity and theatrical innovation on to the next generation of dancers. The company’s second season includes a world premiere, “13 Matra,” and the return of “Invoking the River,” Moraga’s tribute to the power of water.

8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, Sept. 29-30; 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 1. $25-$50. ODC Theater, 3153 Shotwell St., S.F.•6 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 8. Hammer Theater, 101 Paseo de San Antonio, San Jose.www.chitreshdasinstitute.org

Sankai Juku

This immensely popular Japanese troupe, under the direction of founder Amagatsu Ushio since its founding in 1975, is the world’s best-known proponent of Butoh, the typically slow-moving, emotionally intense form of dance that developed as a response to the horrors of World War II. Returning to Stanford Live, they bring “Kōsa — Between Two Mirrors,” which draws on Amagatsu’s past work to enact a meditation on our current international anxieties.

7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 7. $15-$95. Memorial Auditorium, 551 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford. 650-724-2464.https://live.stanford.edu

Flyaway Productions

San Francisco-based choreographer Jo Kreiter’s company sends dancers rappelling down the sides of buildings and flying through the air. Her latest, “If I Give You My Sorrows,” continues Flyaway’s three-year exploration of the California prison system in a more intimate setting, incorporating the recorded voices of formerly incarcerated activists as five dancers spin and levitate inside Project Artaud’s Space 124.

7:30 p.m. Oct. 6, 8, 11-13 and 15; 7:30 and 9 p.m. Oct. 7 and 14. $25-$35 and free for “systems-impacted people.” Space 124 at Project Artaud, 401 Alabama St., S.F.flyawayproductions.com/upcoming

Alonzo King Lines Ballet

的42家季节,西德尼国王的伴随矩阵y of exquisitely sculpted, heart-laid-bare dancers revisits six of the choreographer’s most striking works, including “Following the Subtle Current Upstream,” commissioned by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 2000 and set to music by tabla master Zakir Hussain and South African singer Miriam Makeba. By contrast, “Dust and Light,” from 2009, uses Baroque music by Corelli and chants by Poulenc. Also excerpted on the program are “Writing Ground,” “Resin,” “Suite Etta” and “Child of Sky and Earth,” created in 2021 with New York City Ballet star Tiler Peck.

7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, Oct. 12-14, and 5 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 15. $40-$115. Blue Shield of California Theater at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.linesballet.org/fall-2023

San Francisco International Hip-Hop DanceFest

The world’s first festival devoted to hip-hop dance for the concert stage celebrates its 25th anniversary. Performers hail from Paris (Wanted Posse) and Congo (Baptista Kawa) as well as London, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Detroit and Brussels. Representing the Bay Area’s very own San Mateo is world competitive dance crew Str8Jacket. Special events include an “Echo the Moves” audience participation choreography contest, a “Soul Train Style” contest and a special kids freestyle session.

1 and 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 11, and noon Sunday, Nov. 12. $53-$67. Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3601 Lyon St., S.F.www.sfhiphopdancefest.com

Akram Khan

London-based choreographer Akram Khan is world-renowned for combining his classical kathak training with contemporary dance, and for radically reimagining old stories like “Giselle,” the 19th century ballet whose plot he transplanted to India for the English National Ballet. In “Jungle Book Reimagined,” Khan’s own company takes on the politically problematic set of classic tales by Rudyard Kipling, making the boy Mowgli a climate refugee.

7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 2; 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 3. $15-$95. Memorial Auditorium,551 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford. 650-724-2464.https://live.stanford.edu

Rachel Howard is a freelance writer.