After Miami City Ballet made its Lincoln Center debut a couple weeks ago, the 30-year-old company earned high praise from New York Times dance critic Alastair Macauley, who proclaimed that the troupe is "at the forefront of all those dancing choreography by George Balanchine today."

After invoking words such as "heroic" and "superb" to describe the company, now under the direction of former New York City Ballet principal Lourdes Lopez, Macauley noted that Balanchine used to constantly ask his dancers why they were saving their energy.

"These Miami dancers don't need to be asked," he wrote. "The effortlessly spacious way they eat up space — fearlessly, again and again, stepping over the brink as if into the unknown — is a thrill to the senses. So is their sparkling musicality, catching multiple facets of the music and, like mirrors, beaming them out into the auditorium."

Macauley also offered helpful advice. "There's no better ballet company to follow on Instagram [@miamicityballet], with its perfectly chosen miniature film clips of repertory and individual ballet steps," he wrote. Bookmarking that, right now.

RICK NELSON