Cara-Mae Marcus joined Spectrum Dance Theater this year, just in time to serve as the pivot point for artistic director Donald Byrd’s revival of his A Cruel New World/the new normal. Byrd combined three different parts into one grueling role that gave a new continuity to the dance, originally made in response to post-9/11 American culture—Marcus took Byrd’s high-intensity movement and the work’s prison-yard setting all in stride with a combination of sangfroid and killer technique.