Raised in Southern California, the famed dance icon is returning with her company to celebrate 60 years of her work.

Instruments of a Beating Heart” follows a group of first graders in Japan who form an orchestra to play Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,” as part of a welcoming ceremony for the incoming class of 6-year-olds.

As Hawke, the alter ego of character comic Milo McCabe, concedes, he isn’t the most straightforward act to describe to the ...