dance

Kaatsbaan Cultural Park in Tivoli, New York, hosts its 2025 festival guided by Michele Steinwald’s artistic vision, a dancer, programmer and longtime advocate for contemporary performance whose work places audiences at the center of the process.

Innovation continues at PS21: Performance for the 21st Century tonight and tomorrow with Life in This House is Over, a darkly comedic American premiere by director and performer Samantha Shay. Previously staged in Iceland and Poland, this piece blends movement, music, and text to explore grief with humor and poignancy, inspired by the plays of Anton Chekhov and the dances of Pina Bausch. The title comes from Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard.

Jacob’s Pillow, founded by Ted Shawn in 1931, presents another month of world-class dance under the direction of Pam Tatge and her team, featuring 21 companies. Jacob’s Pillow accomplishes in one month what other festivals take an entire season to achieve.

This week enjoy attending several dance performances and a dance-film discussion and note a singular performance seen last week.

The New York City Ballet will be at SPAC in Saratoga Springs from July 9th -12th. We get a preview of this week’s performances from New York City Ballet Artistic Director Jonathan Stafford.

Summer dance is about to take center stage at Jacob’s Pillow in Massachusetts, kicking off a vibrant season along our local dance corridor. Featuring renowned international companies and bold emerging voices, the 2025 program is as rich and far-reaching as ever. Jacob’s Pillow, a cornerstone of American dance, leads the way.

The award-winning Crescendo, a choral and Baroque music group based in Sharon, CT, draws singers and musicians from across the tri-state area. Founded by conductor Christine Gevert in 2006, Crescendo will present Body & Soul: Cavalieri’s Rappresentatione di Anima et di Corpo on May 10 and 11 in Lakeville, CT, and Great Barrington, MA, respectively.

Pilobolus is currently on tour with re:CREATION which brings their celebrated collection of repertory to audiences across the country. On Saturday May 3rd Pilobolus will be at the Mahaiwe Theater in Great Barrington, MA with two performances.

This Thursday and Friday, April 17 and 18, EMPAC at RPI in Troy, New York presents the Ephemeral Organ Festival. The presentations this week feature a series of residencies, performances, and talks by artists whose works explore dance and movement as a means of experiencing memory, history, and Black lived experience. Tara Aisha Willis is Curator of Theater & Dance at EMPAC and she joins us to tell us more.

Ballet Hispánico, the premier Latine dance company, founded by tour-de-force Tina Ramirez in 1970, and now led by the incomparable Eduardo Vilaro, presented their Palante Junior Ensemble, ages 17-24, at the Orpheum Performing Arts Center in Tannersville, NY, on Saturday, March 22.