NORTH CAROLINA PRESS CONTACT
Amanda Camos
amanda@americandancefestival.org
Office: 919-684-6402

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

LYNDA DAVIS AND CLAY TALIAFERRO TO RECEIVE THE
2025 AMERICAN DANCE FESTIVAL DISTINGUISHED TEACHING AWARD

Durham, NC, April 11, 2025 – The American Dance Festival (ADF) will present the 2025 Balasaraswati/Joy Anne Dewey Beinecke Endowed Chair for Distinguished Teaching and its $5,000 honorarium to dance educators Lynda Davis and Clay Taliaferro. A ceremony honoring their contributions to the dance field will take place on Sunday, June 29, 2025, at 5:00 PM at The Fruit in Durham, North Carolina.

“Their remarkable careers in education have impacted and inspired generations, both in and beyond the studio,” said Nile H. Russell, ADF’s Director of Education. “By fostering care, curiosity, and intellect, they create a space for rediscovery, empowerment, and the offering of one’s authentic self. Ms. Davis and Mr. Taliaferro continue to remind us of the transformative power of movement to reveal and liberate the soul.”

Lynda Davis is a renowned dancer, choreographer, and educator with a strong connection to ADF. She co-directed ADF’s Dance Professionals Workshops from 1988 to 1995 with Martha Meyers. As part of ADF’s International Linkage Program, she taught in China, Korea, India, Mozambique, and Russia. She also served as Artistic Director and principal choreographer for the Centre Dance Ensemble and Transition Dance Company sponsored by the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance, currently known as Trinity Conservatoire of Music and Dance. She has conducted additional choreographic and teaching residencies throughout the United States and parts of South Africa, France, Italy, Ireland, and England. Davis has also performed with the Gloria Newman Dance Theatre and the Bella Lewitzky Dance Company and co-directed the Theatre Dance Trio with Clay Taliaferro and Carol Warner. A recipient of the Florida Dance Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Davis served on the faculty of Florida State University for 35 years, earning numerous teaching honors. Her recent creative work focuses on arts in healthcare, social justice, and community practice.

Clay Taliaferro, an internationally renowned dancer, choreographer, and teacher, has had a distinguished career spanning over six decades. He began his professional teaching at ADF in 1969 and continued collaborating with the festival, influencing countless dancers and choreographers. He has worked to remount the José Limón Dance Company’s repertoire and contributed to the ADF International Linkage Program, sharing his expertise in modern dance worldwide. In addition to his work with leading choreographers, Taliaferro has contributed to dance education as a professor at Duke University, receiving multiple honors such as the Duke University Richard K. Lublin Distinguished Award. He was invited in 1987 by the Duke University Dance Program as an artist in residence and remained as professor of practice of dance for 20 years. Taliaferro was hailed by the university’s president, Richard Brodhead, to be “the epitome of what we want all professors in the arts to be.” He was also awarded the North Carolina School of the Arts Outstanding Teacher Award, the 1998 African American Dance Ensemble Artist/Humanitarian Award, the 2005 North Carolina Dance Alliance Annual Award, and the honorary degree, Doctor of Fine Arts, from Rhode Island College in 1986. In recognition of his vast professional accomplishments, the Alumni Affairs Committee of the Boston Conservatory unanimously chose Taliaferro for the 2009 Distinguished Alumni Award.  Additionally, he was honored with the National Dance Education Organization’s 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award. With a rich legacy of choreographing and teaching globally, Taliaferro continues to inspire others through his work and passion.

Anjali Austin will present the award to Davis. Ms. Austin serves as Professor and Chair of Florida State University’s School of Dance, where she teaches, choreographs, and mentors undergraduate and graduate dance majors. A 13-year veteran of Dance Theatre of Harlem, she worked with Agnes de Mille, Louis Johnson, Alexandra Danilova, Glen Tetley, Valerie Bettis, Geoffrey Holder, Frederick Franklin, and others. Her ballet performances include Billy the Kid, Swan Lake (Act II), Serenade, Flower Festival, Dougla, Concerto Barocco, and more. Austin holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College, serves as the Immediate Past-President of CORPS de Ballet International, and lectures on the history and legacy of Black classical ballet dancers. Barbara Dickinson will present the award to Taliaferro. A Professor Emerita of the Practice of Dance at Duke University, Dickinson taught for 34 years and served as Dance Program Director for 18 years, where she oversaw faculty development, helped expand the curriculum, and established a dance major. She has created large-scale, collaborative choreographic works such as Walking Miracles, an original dance/theater production based on the stories of 6 survivors of child sexual abuse, and Contents Under Pressure, an exploration of the many faces of bias in society co-choreographed with Ava LaVonne Vinesett. She was a member of Manbites Dog Theater, a professional experimental theater company based in Durham, NC, serving as an actress, choreographer, and movement consultant. Since the 1970s, she has performed, taught, and presented her choreography across the United States.

ADF’s 2025 performance season will take place from June 12 to July 26 in Durham, NC. Tickets to ADF performances will go on sale on April 29. Tickets can be purchased online at americandancefestival.org or the Duke University Box Office.

About ADF:
With a legacy spanning 92 years, the American Dance Festival has served as a premier institution for modern dance, attracting artists, audiences, and thousands of students worldwide. ADF fosters innovation by nurturing new works, offering intensive training, and supporting artists at all career stages. ADF has served as a laboratory for experimentation and innovation by promoting the creation of new works and collaborations, educating generations of dancers through intensive training programs, presenting live and screen dance to the public, and developing humanities and international exchange programs. Originating in 1934 at the Bennington School of Dance, ADF relocated to Connecticut College in 1948 and has called Duke University and Durham home for the past 48 years. Since 2012, ADF has operated year-round programs at Samuel H. Scripps Studios, offering movement classes, choreographic residencies, and outreach. ADF also values community engagement, notably through ADF Project Dance, established in 1998, which partners with local organizations to bring dance to the Triangle area.

The post Lynda Davis and Clay Taliaferro to receive the 2025 American Dance Festival Distinguished Teaching Award appeared first on American Dance Festival.

NORTH CAROLINA PRESS CONTACT
Amanda Camos
amanda@americandancefestival.org
Office: 919-684-6402

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

American Dance Festival Announces Its 2025 Season

Durham, NC, March 20, 2025 — The American Dance Festival (ADF) is thrilled to announce its 2025 season with a full summer performance schedule from June 12 to July 26 and additional performances in September. With 40 performances by 22 acclaimed dance companies and choreographers from around the globe, featuring 10 world premieres, 13 ADF commissions, and 11 company/choreographer debuts, ADF celebrates the diversity of modern dance and its community. The 2025 season is dedicated to the talented alumni of ADF. Many of this season’s choreographers and performers have deep connections to ADF, having been both students and faculty at various points in their careers.

“This season is unlike any other. We’re bringing together the groundbreaking works of Trisha Brown, Merce Cunningham, and Paul Taylor in one extraordinary program that celebrates dance and the incredible collaborations they had with the groundbreaking visual artist Robert Rauschenberg, alongside a lineup of companies and artists showcasing the incredible breadth and brilliance of artistic talent in modern dance. Expect joyful and athletic performances that celebrate the resilience of the human spirit, with pieces exploring darker themes that are as thought-provoking as they are uplifting and moving. From immersive experiences and multimedia productions to unconventional stagecraft and even joyous dance parties, we invite the community to celebrate alongside the artists. And, of course, we’ll highlight the brilliant ADF alumni who continue to shape the now and future of dance,” says Jodee Nimerichter, ADF’s Executive Director.

Festival regulars returning this summer are Pilobolus with classic favorites and new creations, and Ballet Hispánico, the largest Latine cultural organization in the United States. Ballet Hispánico is presenting a groundbreaking production of CARMEN.maquia, celebrating the 150th anniversary of Bizet’s timeless masterpiece, a Latin Dance Party, and a camp for youth. For the first time at ADF, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company (DCDC) and Paul Taylor Dance Company (PTDC) are sharing a historical program. DCDC is performing Paul Taylor’s Esplanade, and PTDC is performing Ulysses Dove’s Vespers, which are often performed by the opposite company. DCDC makes history by being the first African American dance company to add Paul Taylor’s iconic Esplanade to its repertory, further solidifying its commitment to artistic excellence and innovation.

Trisha Brown Dance Company with Merce Cunningham Trust celebrate the centennial of the visionary American artist Robert Rauschenberg, presenting Dancing with Bob: Rauschenberg, Brown and Cunningham Onstage with Special Guests Paul Taylor Dance Company. While widely recognized for his groundbreaking contributions to visual art, Rauschenberg also played a significant role in the performing arts—both as a performer and designer for choreographers over several decades. Among the many dance artists he collaborated with, his most frequent and notable partnerships were with Merce Cunningham and Trisha Brown. For this occasion, Trisha Brown Dance Company (TBDC) will unite the work of these iconic 20th-century artists in an evening of dance featuring “visual presentations” designed by Rauschenberg. The program will include Brown’s beloved Set and Reset (1983), set to music by Laurie Anderson, alongside Cunningham’s Travelogue (1977), a comedic masterpiece featuring music by John Cage that has remained largely unseen by the public since 1979. The centennial tour will launch at ADF and will be the only location that includes two works, 3 Epitaphs (1956) and Tracer (1962) by Paul Taylor that also celebrate Rauschenberg sets and costumes. Set and Reset and Travelogue will be performed by TBDC and 3 Epitaphs and Tracer will be performed by PTDC. This program highlights the dedication of our alumni, with Trisha Brown, Paul Taylor, and Merce Cunningham all having trained at the ADF school. For nine decades, ADF has been a premier destination where dancers perform, create, research, and build lifelong connections, shaping them into leaders in the dance field.

The globally celebrated Irish company Attic Projects is making its ADF debut with Volcanos, a four-part live-action sci-fi thriller. Acclaimed director, choreographer, and performer Luke Murphy combines theater, television, and dance in a unique new performance that challenges expectations and blends reality with fiction. “Athletic, astonishingly expressive duets between Thompson and Murphy are the production’s most electrifying sequences… breath-taking movement,” says Naveen Kumar of The New York Times. In collaboration with Paul Taylor Dance Company, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company makes history by being the first African American dance company to add Paul Taylor’s iconic Esplanade to its repertory, further solidifying its commitment to artistic excellence and innovation. Passion Fruit Dance Company presents the world premiere of Dimensions, commissioned by ADF. The piece poses questions like, “How do you see me? How do you see us? Is your judgment the same in 2D or 3D? What happens when we think outside the box?” Exploring multiple dimensions through various angles, visual mediums, and street/club dance styles, Dimensions invites the audience to dream and shape their being beyond the limits of space, time, and social constructs. It is a journey of self-discovery, revealing the many layers and versions of ourselves across physical, emotional, and spiritual realms.

The annual Footprints program bridges ADF’s performance series and Summer Dance Intensive. The result is a brilliant evening of ADF-commissioned world premieres performed by ADF students. This year’s choreographers are ADF School alum and faculty member Michelle N. Gibson, Ravid Abarbanel, an artistic pioneer of floorwork-based classes, and Tú Hoàng, known for blending ballet, modern dance, kung fu, tai chi, and Hip-hop.

The Made in NC program features four world premieres of ADF commissions by North Carolina artists. This year’s artists are distinguished ADF faculty member and Artistic Director of Big Red Dance Project Gerri Houlihan, Charlotte Ballet artistic director Alejandro Cerrudo, Mambo Dinamico Dance Company founder Norberto “Betto” Herrera, and classical Indian kathak choreographer and dancer Tanu Sharma.

2025 festival performances will be presented at venues throughout the triangle. Tickets go on sale on Tuesday, April 29th and can be purchased through ADF’s website or the Duke University Box Office. More detailed information about performances, venues, tickets, and performing companies, including photos, videos, and press reviews, are available at americandancefestival.org.

Promotional photographs and press reviews of performing companies are available upon request.

2025 Performance Schedule

Dancing with Bob: Rauschenberg, Brown and Cunningham Onstage with special guest Paul Taylor Dance Company
June 12 at 7 pm and June 13* at 7:30 pm
Reynolds Industries Theater, Durham
Trisha Brown Dance Company will showcase the works of iconic 20th-century artists in an evening of dance featuring Rauschenberg’s visual designs, including Brown’s Set and Reset and Cunningham’s Travelogue, a comedic masterpiece rarely seen since 1979. 3 Epitaphs by Paul Taylor features a parade of faceless, gray-leotarded dancers set to early New Orleans jazz, creating a humorous yet brilliant exploration of posture and gesture. In Tracer, Paul Taylor combines refined elegance with simplicity, while Rauschenberg’s spinning bicycle wheel adds an amusing touch of anti-utilitarian art. The piece is an austere, experimental work where movement unfolds independently of the wheel’s presence, showcasing a playful yet thoughtful blend of gesture and décor.

Passion Fruit Dance Company
June 14* at 7:30 pm and June 15 at 3 pm
Jones Auditorium at Meredith College, Raleigh
ADF-Commissioned World Premiere | ADF Debut
Co-Presented by Meredith College
Passion Fruit Dance Company invites you to experience an immersive and interactive art exhibition version of Dimensions. This multi-disciplinary theater work blends street/club dance, body casting, motion capture, projections, animation, live music, live painting, and photography. Centered around perception shifts, Dimensions stimulates critical conversations by exploring the physical, spiritual, and spatio-temporal intricacies of multiple dimensions. Through this multimedia-infused performance, the artists engage audiences in a dynamic exploration of complex and evolving perspectives.

Made in NC
June 18 at 7:30 pm
Reynolds Industries Theater, Durham
ADF-Commissioned World Premieres | ADF Debuts
Co-Presented by Cary, NC
The Made in NC program features the world premiere of four ADF-commissioned works by North Carolina artists. In 2022, Alejandro Cerrudo was appointed artistic director of Charlotte Ballet. Born in Madrid, Spain, his career includes work with Victor Ullate Ballet, Stuttgart Ballet, Nederlands Dans Theater 2, and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. Gerri Houlihan has been on the faculty of ADF since 1981 and currently teaches at ADF’s Samuel H. Scripps Studios in Durham. She received ADF’s Balasaraswati Joy Anne Dewey Beinecke Endowed Chair for Distinguished Teaching and served as Co-Dean and Dean of the ADF School from 2010 to 2015. Norberto “Betto” Herrera, an Ecuadorian immigrant, founded the Mambo Dinamico Dance Company in 2002 and now teaches Afro-Latin dance at Carmen’s Cuban Cafe in North Carolina. He has been recognized for his contributions to dance and culture, including receiving the 2020 Arts and Culture Diamante Award and working with prestigious institutions like the Nasher Museum of Art and North Carolina Symphony. Tanu Sharma, a dance artist and choreographer from India, has taught dance to all ages and participated in various cultural outreach programs and lecture demonstrations. She has been involved in fundraising events, including Dancing with the Carolina Stars at the Carolina Theatre of Durham and supporting the Two Cents of Hope student organization at NCSU. An encore outdoor performance will take place at Downtown Cary Park on September 19.

Pilobolus
June 20* at 7:30 pm and June 21 at 3 pm
Page Auditorium, Durham
Immerse yourself in the dynamic universe of Pilobolus, where the human experience unfolds through breathtaking grace, acrobatic power, and unparalleled artistry. Experience visionary collaborations, the return of one of the most physically astounding works in the company’s canon, plus Pilobolus’s interpretation of Martha Graham’s Lamentation, created in celebration of Graham100 and the Lamentation Variations project. Since 1971, Pilobolus has captivated audiences worldwide with its innovative blend of athleticism, artistry, and imagination, pushing the limits of human physicality while leaving a lasting imprint on popular culture with over 120 pieces performed in 65 countries.

Tommy Noonan, Jassem Hindi, and Frank Mugisha/Culture Mill
June 21* & June 22 at 1 pm
von der Heyden Studio Theater, Durham
ADF-Commissioned World Premiere
How To Be a Visitor is a new work by Culture Mill, conceived by dancer/choreographer Tommy Noonan in collaboration with artists across the world: Jassem Hindi (Palestine/France), Frank Mugisha (Rwanda/Uganda), Edgar Kanyike (Uganda), Sebulime Elisha Davis (Uganda), Cortland Gilliam (USA), and Caitlyn Swett (USA). This innovative performance connects artists and audiences across multiple countries through simultaneous, live-streamed solo performances in dance, sound, and poetry. Each participating location will host a live audience, with a screen displaying a real-time video feed from the other sites. These feeds will be mixed and manipulated live by Culture Mill’s media designer on-site in Durham, North Carolina, creating a dynamic, shared visual experience across all locations. The result is an immersive, trans-cultural encounter where audiences witness the clarity and complexity of shared experience across distance—navigating what it means to be a visitor in bodies, languages, and contexts not entirely their own.

About the Artists
Tommy Noonan is a director, choreographer, writer, performer, and organizer based in Saxapahaw, NC. His trans-disciplinary performances have been presented throughout the US and Europe, drawing from contemporary dance, theater, sound installation, and community facilitation to explore embodied encounters in specific places. Jassem el Hindi is a French-Palestinian-Lebanese artist and performer based in Norway. His work examines themes of haunting and hospitality, often beginning with death poems and broken iconographies cast in nervousness and necessity. Frank Mugisha is a dance artist working in East Africa and internationally. Trained in contemporary dance, breakdance, and African traditional dances, his work blends ancient, holistic, eco-centric practices with contemporary movement vocabularies.

Anna Sperber
June 25* at 7:30 pm, June 26 at 5 pm & 7:30 pm
von der Heyden Studio Theater, Durham
ADF Commission | ADF Debut
We are beacons. Our dance is tenderness. It is the joy and complications of youth and aging. It is holding on. It is tethering. Traversing patterns that unfold over time, reaching exhaustion, and then resisting that limit. How do we simultaneously experience change and stay continuously present? Beacons, choreographed by Anna Sperber, is described by The New York Times as “immediately compelling” and “wonderfully strange,” exploring themes of movement, connection, and endurance through both youth and aging. Performed by Tim Bendernagel, Owen Prum, Zo Williams, and Sperber, with music by Lea Bertucci and lighting by Madeline Best, it delves into change, support, and the complexities of being present.

Ballet Hispánico
June 27* at 7:30 pm and June 29 at 3 pm
Page Auditorium, Durham
CARMEN.maquia reimagines Bizet’s legendary opera through bold and contemporary movement exploring themes of identity, power, and rebellion. Directed by Eduardo Vilaro and choreographed by Gustavo Ramírez Sansano, this production unveils Carmen as a complex, defiant figure—untamed and deeply human. Set on a minimalist stage inspired by Picasso’s love of Carmen, the dancers merge ballet, flamenco, and paso doble into fluid, striking forms. Costumes by Spanish designer David Delfin embrace understated whites, recalling flamenco’s origins while rejecting tradition. This is Carmen as you’ve never seen her before—timeless, bold, and fiercely relevant.

Forces of Nature Dance Theatre
July 1* & 2 at 7:30 pm
Reynolds Industries Theater, Durham
An evening with Forces of Nature Dance Theatre is a powerful journey through light and darkness, where ancient legacies come alive through rhythm and movement. It’s a celebration of the human struggle for balance, healing, and consciousness—expressed through the universal language of dance. In this kinetic space, past, present, and future collide in the now as passion, joy, sorrow, love, and desire move together. Divinity becomes one, and diverse dance, music, and rhythm forms unite to stir the soul. Featuring timeless repertoire, this is a night to remember—where the unseen and seen merge, lifting the spirit with hope and connection as dance and audience become one.

Luke Murphy’s Attic Projects
July 3 & 5 at 5 pm, and July 4 & 6 at 12 pm
von der Heyden Studio Theater, Durham
ADF Debut
Luke Murphy’s Attic Projects brings four-time Irish Times Theatre Award winner Volcano to ADF this summer. In a liminal space, a living room in disrepair, a room without a door, two exasperated characters recreate the greatest hits of old lives: a night at a rave, a favorite game show, an 80s music video, passing the time or quietly clinging to distant memories of a life out of reach. As the narrative unfolds the deeper precarity of their circumstances comes to focus leading the audience through a fever dream of questions and upended assumptions. Presented across four, forty-five-minute episodes, Volcano blurs the lines of experimental theater, contemporary dance, and a sci-fi thriller in live performance made for the Netflix era.

Miguel Gutierrez
July 9*, 10*, & 11* at 7:30 pm
von der Heyden Studio Theater, Durham
ADF Commission
What can a dance do to confront the constant grief that we experience in our lives? Super Nothing presents four dancers whose explorations are analogs for how people support each other to survive. Interdependence takes multiple forms, as the performers move through representations of the past to create a blueprint for a new future. This piece extends Gutierrez’s interest over the past few years in creating “choreography for the end of the world.”

Footprints
July 12 at 7:30 pm and July 13 at 3 pm
Reynolds Industries Theater, Durham
ADF-Commissioned World Premieres
The Footprints program bridges ADF’s performance and education series, featuring three ADF-commissioned world premieres by renowned choreographers and performed by ADF students. This year’s choreographers are Ravid Abarbanel, Michelle N. Gibson, and Tú Hoàng. Abarbanel, an Israeli/Portuguese dancer and choreographer, teaches dynamic floorwork and improvisational classes worldwide. Gibson, an ADF alum and 15-year faculty member, specializes in African Diaspora dance styles and her own New Orleans Second Line Aesthetic. Hoàng, the founder of Hangtho Creatives, blends ballet, modern dance, kung fu, tai chi, and Hip-hop, reflecting his Vietnamese heritage and European experiences in his choreography.

Alonzo King LINES Ballet
July 16* & 17 at 7:30 pm
Reynolds Industries Theater, Durham
ADF Debut
Deep River premiered May 13, 2022, as part of LINES Ballet’s 40th anniversary season. Over the first two years of the pandemic, Alonzo King and the artists of LINES worked in confined bubbles at their studios, in outside grassy areas of Golden Gate Park, on a farm in the isolated desert of Wickenburg Arizona, and in other locales to build work and not be halted or harmed by the pandemic. Deep River results from three years of working in designated time periods in unusual settings. Choreographer Alonzo King says that the work reminds us that “love is the ocean that we rose from, swim in, and will one day return to”—and that love can set us free.

Limón Dance Company
July 19* at 7:30 pm
Page Auditorium, Durham
ADF Commission
Limón Dance Company presents Scherzo, an energetic, athletic dance of four men and a drum tossed between them, a compelling exploration of rhythm and movement, and Two Ecstatic Themes, choreographed by Doris Humphrey. New commissions inspired by lost pieces include Join, choreographed by Aszure Barton, and The Quake that Held Them All, choreographed by Kayla Farrish and commissioned by ADF. Join was inspired by José Limón’s description of Doris Humphrey’s lost piece, Orestes. Through intricate movement, virtuosic partnering, and innovative music, they reimagine Limón’s legacy while bridging eras of groundbreaking craftsmanship. The Quake that Held Them All is inspired by Limón’s lost 1951 piece created during his residency in Mexico City, which was re-choreographed and renamed in 1952. It reflects on traditions, rituals, and the stories of communities rooted in radical care and expression.

makegroup
July 22, 24, & 26 at 7:30 pm and July 23 & 25 at 5 pm
ADF’s Scripps Studios, Durham
ADF Debut
Step into the evocative world of Group Therapy, an immersive dance-theater experience where movement and language intertwine in a quest for understanding ourselves and one another. Guided by a former dance teacher turned self-certified Experimental Experiential Dance Therapy Theatre Therapist, you’ll join a session like no other—one where bodies speak louder than words, time-outs are transformative, and the act of naming unnamed feelings becomes an art form in itself. Using a DIY aesthetic and a hearty dose of humor, Group Therapy creates a world where we all attempt to get “better”—whatever that means. Leah Cox is the co-creator, co-producer, and performer of Group Therapy, as well as the co-founder of makegroup. In addition to her work in creating and performing, Cox is a nationally recognized educator and served as the Dean of the ADF School from 2015 to 2022.

Bulareyaung Dance Company
July 23* at 7:30 pm
Reynolds Industries Theater, Durham
ADF Debut
Luna explores the truest form of man. Choreographed by Bulareyaung Pagarlava, dancers trek and search in the mountain mist under the moonlight, singing soul-guiding chants while demonstrating a pure body gait of labor. Pagarlava and the dancers went deep into the mountains in central Taiwan, to learn how to survive in mountainous forests in the Luluna village of the Bunun tribe in Nantou County. They collaborated with the Luluna Bunun Choir and sang ancient Bunun chants, which have been listed as a Cultural Heritage in Taiwan. From daily chants to the “exploit-boasting” acts of traditional hunters, they incorporate dance arts into the Bunun culture to reflect the tradition, reflect the contemporary, and allow dancers to explore and return to their inner selves.

Dayton Contemporary Dance Company and Paul Taylor Dance Company
July 25* at 7:30 pm and July 26 at 5 pm
Page Auditorium, Durham
ADF-Commissioned World Premiere
The Dayton Contemporary Dance Company (DCDC) and Paul Taylor Dance Company will (PTDC) close out the ADF season with a shared program that marks a significant milestone, as both companies are stepping outside of their traditional repertory. DCDC will perform Paul Taylor’s 1975 masterpiece Esplanade, a vibrant exploration of human movement, takes pedestrian actions—walking, running, falling—and elevates them to virtuosic heights. Set to the soaring music of Bach’s violin concertos, Esplanade unfolds in five distinct sections, each a testament to Taylor’s choreographic genius. From its deceptively simple beginnings to its breathtaking finale of dancers fearlessly careening across the stage, the work captures the essence of human experience with raw athleticism and emotional depth. PTDC will perform Ulysses Dove’s Vespers, a mesmerizing piece originally crafted for DCDC in 1986. Vespers celebrates sisterhood through the athleticism and grace of six female dancers, driven by Mikel Rouse’s electronic score. Combining faith and abstract movement, the piece captivates with its precise, repetitive choreography and emotional intensity. The work has traditionally been performed by African American repertory companies. This cross-exchange highlights the companies’ commitment to innovation and cultural exchange, making it a truly momentous performance. To conclude the evening, the festival has commissioned internationally acclaimed choreographer and ADF alum Amy Hall Garner to create a groundbreaking new work for both DCDC and PTDC—an unprecedented collaboration. Garner is known for creating innovative works across ballet, modern, and theatrical genres. She will develop the piece during residencies in Dayton and New York City, with a final creative week at ADF before its world premiere on their shared program. The work will then be featured and toured in both companies’ repertories.

*Post-Performance Discussion

Additional Events and Performances

The 2025 Balasaraswati/Joy Anne Dewey Beinecke Endowed Chair for Distinguished Teaching will be awarded to Lynda Davis and Clay Taliaferro. Lynda Davis is a renowned dancer, choreographer, and educator with a strong connection to ADF, where she co-directed the ADF Professional Artist/Educator Update program from 1988 to 1995 and participated in ADF International Linkage Projects worldwide. Clay Taliaferro, an internationally renowned dancer and choreographer, began teaching at ADF in 1969 and continued to collaborate with the festival throughout his career, inspiring generations of dancers. He has also played a key role in the ADF International Linkage Projects, sharing his expertise in modern dance across the globe.

The Children’s Matinee series presents one-hour performances specially curated to ignite and inspire children’s imaginations. The 2025 Children’s Matinees include Pilobolus (June 21, 12 pm), Ballet Hispánico (June 28, 12 pm), and Dayton Contemporary Dance Company and Paul Taylor Dance Company (July 26, 12 pm) at Page Auditorium. A free Kids Party follows each matinee at the Landing of the Bryan Center, complete with live music, face painting, and more. Tickets are $18 each or $40 for all three.

Get ready to dance the night away with ADF’s season performers at four unforgettable evenings of music, artistry, and celebration. This year’s events include Gerri Houlihan’s 80th Birthday Bash (June 11, 5:30 pm) at ADF’s Scripps Studios, Opening Party (June 12, 9 pm) at Parizade (tickets are $50), Latin Dance Party (June 28, 9 pm) at The Fruit (tickets are $25), and Closing Party (July 25, 9 pm) at Parizade (tickets are $50). All proceeds from Gerri Houlihan’s 80th Birthday Bash will support the Gerri Houlihan Scholarship Fund, which will allow us to provide an annual ADF Summer Dance Intensive scholarship in Gerri’s name.

In honor of the season’s dedication, a photographic exhibit of archival materials from a selection of ADF’s notable alumni will hang in the lobby of Reynolds Theater.

ADF Ticket Programs

This year, we offer a range of season ticket packages and exclusive discounts to suit every audience. Get early access to tickets during the presale from April 22 to 28. General tickets will be available for purchase starting April 29.

Experience prime (Tier 1) seating for the opening nights of two ADF Commissioned World Premieres for just $80. This exclusive offer includes Footprints on July 12 at 7:30 pm and Dayton Contemporary Dance Company & Paul Taylor Dance Company on July 25 at 7:30 pm.

Expand your dance horizons with a specially curated selection of three contrasting performances for just $75. Altogether Different is perfect for those passionate about exploring diverse styles, offering the opportunity to choose from four unique performances.

For just $60, experience both the thrilling performance of Ballet Hispánico and a vibrant Latin Dance Party. Attend the Ballet Hispánico performance on either June 27 or June 29, then join us for the Latin Dance Party on June 28, featuring company dancers, a live band, and an exciting dance contest.

Get Out 4 Dance! saves patrons 20% off tickets to 4–7 performances or 25% off to 8 or more performances.

The Kids Night Out program allows youth ages 6–17 to receive one complimentary ticket with the purchase of an adult single ticket.

The Children’s Matinee Package is $40 for one ticket to each of the 3 Children’s Matinee performances.

With the ADF GO program, young adults ages 18–30 can now enjoy modern dance performances for just $20 a ticket.

ADF’s Golden Ticket allows dance educators to purchase a special package of 5 performances for $100.

Groups of 10 or more people receive 25% off single tickets.

Visit our website for more information about discounts and how to purchase tickets.

About ADF

With a legacy spanning 92 years, the American Dance Festival has served as a premier institution for modern dance, attracting artists, audiences, and thousands of students worldwide. ADF fosters innovation by nurturing new works, offering intensive training, and supporting artists at all career stages. ADF has served as a laboratory for experimentation and innovation by promoting the creation of new works and collaborations, educating generations of dancers through intensive training programs, presenting live and screen dance to the public, and developing humanities and international exchange programs. Originating in 1934 at the Bennington School of Dance, ADF relocated to Connecticut College in 1948 and has called Duke University and Durham home for the past 47 years. Since 2012, ADF has operated year-round programs at Samuel H. Scripps Studios, offering movement classes, choreographic residencies, and outreach. ADF also values community engagement, notably through ADF Project Dance, established in 1998, which partners with local organizations to bring dance to the Triangle area.

The post American Dance Festival Announces Its 2025 Season appeared first on American Dance Festival.

Annie Dwyer has always been fascinated by the potential for communication through the body in motion. She has taught dance for over 45 years and trained generations of dancers ages 4-18 in public and private schools throughout North Carolina. During her 32-year tenure at Carolina Friends School, she shaped and facilitated a dance curriculum progressing from preschool through upper school – inspiring students to have a deeper understanding of the form and many to pursue dance professionally in their own careers. To Annie, teaching dance is an art form in and of itself. She taught her students that dance mattered, that they mattered, and that what they created could make a difference. Her career has been guided by countless mentors, including Caryn McHose, Andrea Olsen, Sue Stinson, and Bill Evans. She continues to be deeply involved in the dance community as a collaborator with projects such as Moving Through and The Parkinson’s Performance Project with Culture Mill. Annie has previously received the Beverly and Laramie Hitchings Award for Service to the Art of Dance from the Durham Arts Council, and the Ethel Martus Lawther Alumni Award in Dance from UNC Greensboro.

Gene Medler started dancing at 28 and quickly fell in love with tap dance, its combination of movement, rhythm, and sounds. In 1983, he founded the North Carolina Youth Tap Ensemble to offer his students more performance opportunities, which allowed him to expand his work as a choreographer and educator. For over forty years, his teaching philosophy has been “to teach them everything I know, open all the doors that I can, and get out of their way.” Medler has taught at schools and festivals worldwide and locally at Elon and Duke University, Meredith College, and The Ballet School of Chapel Hill. He directs The North Carolina Rhythm Tap Festival, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and continues to mentor young dancers. Among the many honors Medler has received are “Tar Heel of the Week” from The News and Observer, an Indy Arts Award from The Independent, the North Carolina Dance Alliance Annual Award, and the JUBA Award
from the Chicago Human Rhythm Project.

This year’s season dedication will take place at the top of the Made in NC program on Sunday, July 7, at 7:30 pm at Reynolds Industries Theater.

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“This season features a lineup of companies and artists revealing the broad range of modern dance at its best. We’ll present works of pure, artistic beauty as well as thought-provoking works addressing climate change, gender, and identity. We’ll offer immersive experiences, multimedia productions, works featuring unconventional stagecraft, and even a couple of joyous dance parties where the community and the artists are invited to dance the night away. There is no question that there will be something for everyone this summer,” says Jodee Nimerichter, ADF’s Executive Director.

Program highlights include the presentation of the 2024 Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award for lifetime achievement to acclaimed choreographer Jawole Willa Jo Zollar on Wednesday, July 17. The award will be presented to Zollar after the performance of her newest ADF co-commissioned work SCAT!… The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar by Urban Bush Women, the company she founded and led as artistic director for several decades. The globally celebrated Taiwanese company Hung Dance is making its US and ADF debut with Birdy, weaving Western mythology and Eastern traditions together through contemporary dance. ShaLeigh Dance Works returns with the world premiere of enVISION: The Next Chapter, an immersive, interdisciplinary performance that relies not on sight or sound but on the felt sense of sonic experiences and visual perceptions. Netta Yerushalmy’s MOVEMENT synthesizes over one hundred citations from an expansive range of dances across genres and cultures and will be presented by dancers from Korea, Senegal, Israel, Taiwan, and the US. Canada’s Radical System Art makes its ADF debut with MOI-Momentum of Isolation, which tackles topics of social isolation and the influence of technology on modern society. Live interactive video and sound surround the performers to shape a digital world, while stagecraft and puppeteering highlight how social isolation can disrupt our connection to reality.

Festival regulars returning this summer are Paul Taylor Dance Company, showing three classic works from its world-renowned repertory, and Pilobolus with classic favorites and new creations. ADF welcomes back Doug Varone and Dancers, performing Varone’s new two-part work, To My Arms/Restore, for one night only, and Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE, presenting Upside Down, Open Door, and The Equality of Night and Day (TEND) and featuring community members.

ADF School alum Kayla Farrish is making her ADF debut with Put Away the Fire, dear, a live dance-theater work mapping the journey of six BIPOC and marginalized characters traversing scenes and worlds through dance theater, storytelling, set design, and a score of reclaimed exploited Black American music. Fellow ADF School alumni Baye & Asa are returning with 4/2/3, an ADF co-commission focusing on climate change’s generational impacts. It is a work divided into three sections for three generations of performers, examining the cooperation necessary to acknowledge this existential crisis. In Bob, a mid-career taxonomy of sorts, Milka Djordjevich confronts demands to optimize her female body and the market’s expectation to enhance her performance over time.

The annual Footprints program bridges ADF’s performance series and its Summer Dance Intensive. The result is a brilliant evening of ADF-commissioned world premieres performed by ADF students. This year’s choreographers are ADF School alum and former faculty member David Dorfman, Dianne McIntyre, an artistic pioneer with a choreographic career of more than five decades, and Kate Weare, known for her startling combination of formal choreographic value and visceral, emotional interpretation.

The Made in NC program features four world premieres of ADF commissions by North Carolina artists. This year’s artists are Dom-Sebastian Alexis, a Greensboro native, a Hip-Hop and Contemporary Juxtaposition Artist trained in various degrees of Street Dance, Social Grooves, and contemporary dance techniques. Durham-based Iyun Ashani Harrison collaborates with and presents the work of artists of color and women to expand racial and cultural diversity in ballet to attract new audiences. Gavin Stewart and Vanessa Owen, based in Western North Carolina, are passionate cross-genre collaborators who cultivate the craft of storytelling through movement while incorporating work by local writers, filmmakers, and musicians. Durham’s Stacy Wolfson and Curtis Eller have devised a unique compositional approach combining movement, music, and lyrics to create a peculiar and compelling hybrid of dance and song.

ADF’s audiences are invited to share the dance floor at The Fruit with incredible artists after the curtain falls. Ballet Hispánico kicks off ADF’s 2024 season with works engaging themes of gender, race, and identity within Latin culture and heritage, and ADF’s Latin Dance Party with Ballet Hispánico will be a joyous season-opening celebration for all on Friday, June 14. Les Ballet Afrik’s New York Is Burning highlights self-expression and radical acceptance in the face of adversity while contextualizing the importance of ballroom culture for Queer communities. Following the performance on June 28, the company invites everyone to the dance floor to celebrate the music and dance styles of Black and Latino Queer communities at ADF’s Dance Party.

Ahead of ADF’s summer performance season, Londs Reuter will present GOOD EFFORT, a co-presentation with the North Carolina Museum of Art. In the fall, ADF will partner with the Nasher Museum of Art to present Yoggs Family Newsletter, created and performed by Chris Yon & Taryn Griggs. Black Label Movement rounds up the season with Battleground, a thought-provoking, physical, and innovative work presented in an outdoor dirt pit.

2024 festival performances will be presented at venues throughout the triangle. Tickets go on sale on Tuesday, April 23rd, with prices ranging from $18 to $70 and can be purchased through ADF’s website or the Duke University Box Office. More detailed information about performances, venues, tickets, and performing companies, including photos, videos, and press reviews, are available at americandancefestival.org.

Promotional photographs and press reviews of performing companies are available upon request.

2024 Performance Schedule

Londs Reuter
April 19 & 20 at 7 pm
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh
Co-Presented by the North Carolina Museum of Art
World Premiere | ADF Debut
GOOD EFFORT by dancer and choreographer Londs Reuter is an evening-length performance of attunement, calibration, repetition, trying, and trying again. Choreographed in collaboration with local professional dancers on-site at the North Carolina Museum of Art, GOOD EFFORT asks its performers to be in relationship to effort and sense into what they need to stay together, to lift their leg, or to make it up a hill. For Reuter, effort—whether high, low, or somewhere in between—is a compositional tool and design technique, empowering each performer to exercise their authorship, agency, and invention. What does it take to meet the moment? When does it feel good to give more? When does it feel right to keep 10% for yourself? GOOD EFFORT asserts that no one else might know the effort required for you to do something—but you always do.

Ballet Hispánico
June 13 at 7 pm and June 16 at 3 pm
June 15 at 1 pm Children’s Matinee
Page Auditorium
Ballet Hispánico, the largest Latinx/Latine/Hispanic cultural organization in the United States, returns to ADF this summer with their recent reconstruction of House of Mad’Moiselle, unveiling the electrifying transformation of gender expressions in Latin America. In this piece, the visionary choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa deconstructs norms, and the pulsating rhythms take the audience on a provocative dance journey. Buscando a Juan is a layered and immersive work inspired by the life of the Afro-Hispanic painter Juan de Pareja, who was enslaved by the Spanish painter Diego Velázquez for over two decades before becoming an artist in his own right. Choreographed by Eduardo Vilaro, artistic director and CEO of Ballet Hispánico, the work explores sancocho, or a mixed soup of cultures and diasporas, considering the assumptions experienced when witnessing people of color in white spaces in relation to the exoticized body. 18+1 celebrates Gustavo Ramírez Sansano’s 19 years as a choreographer and the vulnerability, care, and hope that comes with each artistic endeavor. In a subtle humor and electric choreography display, the movement merges with the playful rhythms found in Pérez Prado’s mambo music.

Hung Dance
June 14 & 15 at 7 pm
Reynolds Industries Theater
US & ADF Debuts
In 2017, choreographer Lai Hung-Chung founded Hung Dance, with the name Hung symbolizing the spirit of soaring freedom. Born from an unapologetic desire for flight, Birdy weaves Western mythology and Eastern traditions through stunning contemporary dance, challenging restriction through graceful movements and striking symbolism. A poetic response to whether “every free flight is born from a restriction,” the work explores life and nations’ unsteady skies. This poetic journey of individual and collective soaring confronts contemporary issues while transforming feathers into wings.

Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE
June 18 & 19 at 7:30 pm
Reynolds Industries Theater
Ronald K. Brown/EVIDENCE returns to ADF with Upside Down, a strongly African work about loss and growth out of loss, an excerpt from the evening-length work Destiny. Open Door provides a journey into Afro-Cuban social and traditional dance forms embodying the music of Arturo O’Farrill’s Afro-Latin Jazz Ensemble. The dancers lead on a path full of celebration, culture, and joy through dances of the Orisha and salsa, fueled and propelled by musical compositions. The Equality of Night and Day (TEND) is a sizzling emotional work that tackles his recurrent themes of social injustice and racism. Brown seeks to break open truth, not from anger but with a gentle focus—a sensitivity and steadfastness that draws on history. The program will also feature community members performing All I Do, an excerpt from On Earth Together.

Baye & Asa
June 20–22 at 7:30 pm
von der Heyden Studio Theater
ADF Commission | ADF Debut
ADF alumni Amadi Washington and Sam Pratt are returning to ADF with 4/2/3, which focuses on the generational impacts of climate change using the “Riddle of the Sphinx” as a symbolic structure. The piece is divided into three sections for three generations of performers, examining the intergenerational cooperation necessary to acknowledge this existential crisis. Just as the riddle asks us to look at the cycle of one life, 4/2/3 gives us the structure to speak about the life cycle of an entire species. Reflecting on humanity’s industrial history, we build new worlds on less oppressive, less extractive, and more sustainable foundations. 

Doug Varone and Dancers
June 23 at 7:30 pm
Reynolds Industries Theater
To My Arms/Restore is a new two-part work embodying Doug Varone’s decades-long choreographic fascination with the profoundly emotional and the immensely physical. Set to a suite of arias by G. F. Handel, To My Arms builds a landscape of love and loss, evoking a strange otherworld of intimacy. In stark contrast, Restore feels as if it has been ripped out of today’s front pages, bringing a message of community, defiance, and resilience in a world recoiling and rebounding. Driven by the 21st-century sound of Nico Bentley’s Handel Remixed, the score fuses Handel’s 18th-century choral score Dixit Dominus with beats more commonly heard in clubs around the globe.

Kayla Farrish
June 25–27 at 7:30 pm
von der Heyden Studio Theater
ADF Debut
Put Away the Fire, dear is a live dance-theater work mapping the journey of six BIPOC and marginalized characters taking the reins of their narrative in an evening-length piece. Jumping through portals spanning reality and cinema, Put Away the Fire, dear, uproots power and history across generations of the American landscape to rupture the leading socio-political narratives living in American cinema of the 1930s-60s. In a 75-minute performance of moving stories, the six characters traverse scenes and worlds through dance theater, storytelling, set design, and a score of reclaimed exploited Black American music.

Les Ballet Afrik
June 28 at 7 pm and June 29 at 7:30 pm
Reynolds Industries Theater
Back by popular demand, Les Ballet Afrik’s New York is Burning draws inspiration from the 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning and its depiction of voguing as a powerful expression in the face of racism, homophobia, and the stigma of the AIDS crisis. New York is Burning reflects the aspirations of a diverse group of dancers in a city beset by health, racial, and financial crises. Highlighting the importance of community and connection to ancestry, Les Ballet Afrik provides a space for individual expression and radical acceptance.

Netta Yerushalmy
July 2 at 7:30 pm
Reynolds Industries Theater
ADF Debut
MOVEMENT, by Netta Yerushalmy, synthesizes over one hundred citations from an expansive range of dances across genres and cultures. It is a radical quilt of borrowed material that stretches the idea of pluralism until it almost snaps. It features a score by award-winning composer Paula Matthusen and is performed by dancers from Korea, Senegal, Israel, Taiwan, and the US. This piece follows Yerushalmy’s PARAMODERNITIES, a six-part series generated through reverently and violently dissecting iconic modern choreographies, provoking dynamic conversations with the troubled legacies of the past. MOVEMENT continues Yerushalmy’s practice of repurposing, reorienting, and recontextualizing dance, spinning fragments of seemingly unrelated works into an enthralling new whole. This maximalist performance highlights dance as an inevitable and unifying force in a brittle and confused world. 

Pilobolus
July 5 at 7:30 pm and July 6 at 5 pm
July 6 at 1 pm Children’s Matinee
Page Auditorium
This summer, Pilobolus is bringing its Re:CREATION tour to ADF, presenting a dynamic collection of dance pieces—daring experiments and groundbreaking new collaborations alongside the classics that have altered the landscape of dance and theater. Walklyndon, a seminal piece in Pilobolus’s repertoire, is an all-time favorite that captures the playful essence of the company’s early days. The themes of youth, playfulness, and bawdy humor give way to a sophisticated narrative in Untitled, leaving the audience in awe of a theatrical work where contrasts coalesce into an unnamable and meaningful art form. Behind the Shadows tells a poignant and mysterious story using Pilobolus’ famous shadow dance technique, with moving illusions and surreal narrative. Thresh|Hold, a collaboration with the Venezuelan-born and acclaimed Latinx director, choreographer, and designer Javier De Frutos, is a physically daring quintet with psychedelic shifts in time and emotionally charged choreography. Tales from the Underworld, a new creation, harnesses the creative energy and collaborative spirit that defines Pilobolus, as the performance weaves together stories that reveal profound connections through elements of horror, humor, and revelation.

Made in NC
July 7 at 7:30 pm
Reynolds Industries Theater
ADF-Commissioned World Premieres | ADF Debuts
The Made in NC program features the world premiere of four ADF-commissioned works by North Carolina artists. Dom-Sebastian Alexis, a Greensboro native, is a Hip-Hop and Contemporary Juxtaposition Artist trained in various degrees of Street Dance, Social Grooves, and contemporary dance techniques and has devoted their life to understanding dance diversity. Iyun Ashani Harrison, the founder and artistic director of the Durham-based Ballet Ashani – A Contemporary Ballet, and professor of dance at Duke University, collaborates with and presents the work of artists of color and women to expand racial and cultural diversity in ballet to attract new audiences. Gavin Stewart and Vanessa Owen are the co-founders of Stewart/Owen Dance, based in Western North Carolina, where they are dedicated to building a thriving dance community. As passionate cross-genre collaborators, they cultivate the craft of storytelling through movement while incorporating work by local writers, filmmakers, and musicians. Stacy Wolfson and Curtis Eller, based in Durham, have devised a unique compositional approach combining movement, music, and lyrics to create a peculiar and compelling hybrid of dance and song.

Milka Djordjevich
July 11 & 12 at 7:30 pm
von der Heyden Studio Theater
ADF-Commissioned World Premiere | ADF Debut
Bob is a manic whirlwind of methodical, rapid-fire movements dictated, performed, and self-enforced by Milka Djordjevich. Set to bold music and silence, Bob eroticizes the labor of the dancing body—the repetition, the discipline, and the fallout. A mid-career taxonomy of sorts, Djordjevich confronts demands to optimize her female body and the market’s expectation to enhance her performance over time. Bob is an alter ego trained to be so skilled as to become other—the perfect kinetic subject in the service of her audience. Algorithmic movement patterns conjure approaches from trance, folk ritual, and rite—they become a means to no end. A reflection rivaling the self, Bob is on a rampage with and against self-consciousness to bask in reverie, delusion, desire, and rage. Show no mercy!

Footprints
July 13 at 7:30 pm and July 14 at 3 pm
Reynolds Industries Theater
ADF-Commissioned World Premieres
The Footprints program, which bridges ADF’s performance series and education programs, delivers an outstanding presentation of three ADF-commissioned world premieres, choreographed by renowned choreographers and performed with impeccable technique and infectious energy by ADF students. This year’s choreographers are David Dorfman, Dianne McIntyre, and Kate Weare. ADF School alum and former faculty member David Dorfman, who founded David Dorfman Dance in 1987 to create politically and socially relevant work, is known for his movement-based dance theater. Dianne McIntyre, the 2008 recipient of the American Dance Festival Balasaraswati/Joy Anne Dewey Beinecke Endowed Chair for Distinguished Teaching, is hailed as an artistic pioneer whose individualistic movement style reflects her affinity for cultural histories, personal narratives, and the boldness, nuances, discipline, and freedom in live music and poetic text. Kate Weare, known for her startling combination of formal choreographic value and visceral, emotional interpretation, charts a contemporary view of humanism by placing women at the center of the human story amidst the violence, sensuality, and yearning for intimacy that marks our age.

Urban Bush Women
July 17 & 18 at 7:30 pm
Reynolds Industries Theater
ADF Commission | Live Music
Set in a fictional jazz club, SCAT!… The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar is a dance-driven musical that tells the love story of two people making their way during the Great Migration. It is a powerful tale of one family and what happens when dreams encounter the realities of American life in the ‘40s and ‘50s. The work features an original jazz score performed by a live band. Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, who created, choreographed, and directed SCAT!… The Complex Lives of Al & Dot, Dot & Al Zollar, says, “It is my story. It is my family’s story. It is a personal and collective story of a family and a people, moving from the Jim Crow South during the Great Migration.” After the July 17 performance, Dr. James Frazier will present the 2024 Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival Award for lifetime achievement to Jawole Willa Jo Zollar.

ShaLeigh Dance Works
July 19 at 7:30 pm and July 20 & 21 at 2 & 7:30 pm
July 26 at 7:30 pm and July 27 & 28 at 2 & 7:30 pm
The Fruit
ADF-Commissioned World Premiere
enVISION: The Next Chapter is an immersive interdisciplinary performance that relies not on sight or sound but on the felt sense of sonic experiences and visual perceptions. In a collective creative process, the work has brought together a team of collaborators around two questions: Can we listen to what we see? Can we see what we hear? Conceived explicitly with and for individuals who are low-vision and blind, as well as low-hearing and deaf, the work proposes a new multisensory experience of dance and theater. The work will be presented to a live audience who can choose to experience the show blindfolded or with earbuds, and six audience members will be invited to join the experience onstage. This ADF commission builds on enVISION: Sensory Beyond Sight, which premiered at ADF in 2022.

Radical System Art
July 23 & 24 at 7:30 pm
Reynolds Industries Theater
ADF Debut
Choreographer and Radical System Art’s artistic director Shay Kuebler’s MOI-Momentum of Isolation is based on social isolation and loneliness, exploring objective and subjective experiences through the individual, the group, and modern society—a society with shifting values and an ever-advancing digital way of life. MOI places live interactive video and sound around the performers to shape a digital world on stage. These elements enhance ideas on how technology influences our lives and can empower and disempower us. Further distilling isolation, solo performances and the extended social isolation of one character on stage are critical to the arc of the performance. Within MOI, one character’s interactions are only with inanimate objects. The inanimate world comes to life through puppeteering and stagecraft, highlighting how social isolation can disrupt our connection to reality. Our social bonds allow us to understand that we impact what is around us ؅and that we exist.

Paul Taylor Dance Company
July 26 at 7:30 pm and July 27 at 5 pm
July 27 at 1 pm Children’s Matinee
Page Auditorium
The Paul Taylor Dance Company returns to ADF this summer, presenting three masterpieces from its repertory. Arden Court, a dance set to the baroque music of William Boyce and a nod to Shakespeare’s As You Like It, was an instant success after its premiere in 1981. Private Domain is the name of a mysterious dance that premiered in 1969 and was last performed at ADF in 1978. Mercuric Tidings, with music by Schubert, is one of the purest of Paul Taylor’s dance works, with thirteen dancers in pink costumes flashing across the stage in Taylor’s signature style.

Chris Yon & Taryn Griggs
September 12 at 6 pm
Nasher Museum of Art
Co-Presented by the Nasher Museum of Art
YOGGS FAMILY NEWSLETTER, 2014-present, is an immersive experience where the audience is led through the lobby of the Nasher Museum of Art by Chris Yon and Taryn Griggs alongside their daughter, Bea Yon. The audience is integrated into the trio as momentary chorus members to our family stories, dances, and drawing games. “Dance, for our family, is a parenthesis for life experience. Periods of our lives that we spent working on choreography coincide with periods of major things happening in our lives and the world.” While the dances look “abstract” or non-narrative, this collection addresses how the trio captures experiences, creates memories, and attaches significance to when and where we dance together and who we meet along the way as part of our family story.

Black Label Movement
October 11 at 5 pm, October 12 at 1 & 5 pm, and October 13 at 3 pm
Bahama Bluebs
ADF-Commissioned World Premiere | ADF Debut
Battleground is choreographer Carl Flink’s newest work, influenced by the physicality of Bodystorming, a technique he developed with biomedical engineer David Odde, and Flink’s intellectual curiosity surrounding war, violence, and its impact on the human body. A provocative, physical, and innovative piece grounded in science, ballistic movement, and the ethical and physical consequences of violence and perpetual war, it is intended to encourage meaningful conversations about violence in its many forms as an accepted and often celebrated component of our society. Battleground will be performed outdoors in a 30×25 feet dirt pit.

Additional Events and Performances

The Children’s Saturday Matinee series presents one-hour performances specially curated to ignite and inspire children’s imaginations. The 2024 Children’s Matinees include Ballet Hispánico (June 15, 1 pm), Pilobolus (July 6, 1 pm), and Paul Taylor Dance Company (July 27, 1 pm) at Page Auditorium. A FREE Kids’ Party follows each matinee at the Landing of the Bryan Center, complete with live music, face painting, and more. Tickets are $18 each.

On Friday, June 14, the dancers of Ballet Hispánico will transport you to a hot night in Havana with the rhythms of Latin America at ADF’s Latin Dance Party. Les Ballet Afrik will dance with us to the tunes of House and Latin music, Vogue, and Afrobeats, on Friday, June 28, celebrating the music and dance styles of Black and Latin Queer communities. Both ADF Dance Parties will be at The Fruit in Durham.

The 2024 Balasaraswati/Joy Anne Dewey Beinecke Endowed Chair for Distinguished Teaching will be presented to Ishmael Houston-Jones, educator, performer, and choreographer, on Sunday, June 30.

ADF remains committed to its mission of being dedicated to education. Each year, dance students and artists from around the world converge on the campus of Duke University in Durham, NC, to discover endless possibilities at the American Dance Festival. Under the leadership of Director of Education Nile H. Russell, the ADF School hosts the Summer Dance Intensive (SDI), the Pre-Professional Dance Intensive (PDI), and the Dance Professional Workshops (DPW) each summer.

ADF’s Samuel H. Scripps Studios will offer dance camps this summer for young dancers aged 6-17 years, including Dance Adventures, Summer Dance Days, and Teen Dance Camp. Pilobolus is returning with their beloved Shadowland camp, allowing youth to explore their signature shadow dance technique. Two extraordinary artists from Ballet Hispánico will take campers on an incredible journey through Latin America, focusing on cultural immersion, movement exploration, awareness, and community building in a weeklong camp. A special multi-generational camp led by Ronald K. Brown will present a unique opportunity for movers of all ages to explore dance in a communal space.

ADF Ticket Programs

Get Out 4 Dance saves patrons 20% when purchasing tickets to four or more performances.

The Kids’ Night Out program allows youth ages 6 to 17 to receive one complimentary ticket with the purchase of an adult single ticket or subscription. Not available for Children’s Matinees.

ADF Go is designed to make modern dance more accessible and affordable for young art enthusiasts. Audience members between the ages of 18 and 30 can purchase a $20* ticket to most ADF performances.

ADF’s Golden Ticket allows dance educators to purchase a mini-subscription of 6 performances for $125*.

The Caregiver Discount is for personal caregivers of elderly patrons or patrons with disabilities and offers one free ticket with the purchase of another ticket. 

Experience Dance is an effort to make dance accessible to as many groups as possible. ADF distributes complimentary performance tickets to nonprofit organizations that work with individuals, families, youth, and seniors in need who otherwise could not attend performances.

Groups of 10 or more people receive 25% off single tickets (purchased simultaneously). Select the “Group 10+” price when buying tickets.

Visit our website for more information about discounts and how to purchase tickets.

*Service fees may apply.

Thank you to all our major sponsors!

PRESS CONTACT
Katrin Deil
katrin@americandancefestival.org
919-684-6402

About ADF

Throughout its 91-year history, the American Dance Festival has been the home of an art form, attracting artists, audiences, and thousands of students worldwide. By preserving our modern dance heritage, promoting the creation of new works and collaborations, educating generations of dancers through intensive training programs, supporting artists at all stages of their careers, presenting live and screen dance to the public, and developing humanities and international exchange programs, ADF has served as a laboratory for experimentation and innovation. ADF was founded at the Bennington School of Dance and moved to Connecticut College in 1948. For the past 47 years, ADF has taken pride in calling Duke University and Durham home. Since 2012, ADF has managed its first year-round facilities, the Samuel H. Scripps Studios, offering movement classes for students of all ages and abilities, as well as choreographic residencies and outreach programs throughout the community.

The post American Dance Festival Announces Its 2024 Season appeared first on American Dance Festival.

“I am honored to announce Ishmael Houston-Jones as the recipient of this year’s teaching award. As an educator, he pushes students to take risks, allowing them to discover that their abilities to create and find beauty in this world are boundless,” said Nile H. Russell, ADF’s Director of Education. “It becomes evident to any observer of Houston-Jones that he thrives off the energy he receives from teaching, which makes it a vital part of his practice.”

Ishmael Houston-Jones, who taught in the ADF School for many years, is an adjunct professor at The Experimental Theater Wing of NYU/Tisch School of the Arts and a master lecturer at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. He has taught at prestigious institutions worldwide, including the California Institute of the Arts, Impulstanz in Vienna, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the New York University Department of Dance/Tisch School of the Arts, and Playwrights Horizons. As an artist and educator, he is an innovator of improvisational practices.

Beyond his teaching, Ishmael Houston-Jones is a choreographer, author, performer, and curator. His improvised dance and text work has been performed in New York, the US, and worldwide. As an author, Houston-Jones’s essays, fiction, interviews, and performance texts have been published in several anthologies. Further, he sits on the Movement Research and Performance Space New York board of directors.

Ishmael Houston-Jones has won four New York Dance and Performance Awards, including the “Bessie” for Service to the Field of Dance in 2020. He is a 2022 recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and a 2021 recipient of the United States Artists Fellowship. He received the 2019 Edwin Booth Award, given annually by the Doctoral Theatre Students’ Association of the City University of New York. His work has also been supported by The Foundation for Contemporary Arts (2013), The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (2015), The Herb Alpert Foundation (2016), The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation (2018), and The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation (2020). Houston-Jones curated Platform 2012: Parallels, which focused on choreographers from the African diaspora and postmodernism, and co-curated with Will Rawls Platform 2016: Lost & Found, Dance, New York, HIV/AIDS, Then and Now.

Photo by Marc Poucher

PRESS CONTACT
Katrin Deil
katrin@americandancefestival.org
919-684-6402

ADF’s 2024 performance season will take place from June 13 to July 28 in Durham, NC, with additional pre- and post-performances happening in April, September, and October across the Triangle. The full performance schedule will be announced on March 20. Tickets to ADF performances will go on sale on April 23, 2024. Tickets can be purchased online at americandancefestival.org or the Duke University Box Office.

About ADF:
Throughout its 91-year history, the American Dance Festival has been the home of an art form, attracting artists, audiences, and thousands of students worldwide. By preserving our modern dance heritage, promoting the creation of new works and collaborations, educating generations of dancers through intensive training programs, supporting artists at all stages of their careers, presenting live and screen dance to the public, and developing humanities and international exchange programs, ADF has served as a laboratory for experimentation and innovation. ADF was founded at the Bennington School of Dance and moved to Connecticut College in 1948. For the past 47 years, ADF has taken pride in calling Duke University and Durham home. Since 2012, ADF has managed its first year-round facilities, the Samuel H. Scripps Studios, offering movement classes for students of all ages and abilities, as well as choreographic residencies and outreach programs throughout the community.

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“Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, the founder of Urban Bush Women, the all-female troupe of beauty and strength, has led the way in transforming and diversifying the field of dance. Her masterful and innovative storytelling that focuses on the importance of cultural identity, equity, and community engagement as well as her careful lifting up and nurturing of women choreographers of color, has had a profound impact on this art form. Her life-long dedication has moved us all forward. I am beyond thrilled that we will honor her this season,” said Jodee Nimerichter, ADF’s Executive Director.

Jawole Willa Jo Zollar grew up in Kansas City, MO, and earned her B.A. in dance from the University of Missouri at Kansas City and her M.F.A. in dance from Florida State University. In 1980, Zollar moved to New York City to study with Dianne McIntyre at Sounds in Motion, and in 1984, she founded Urban Bush Women, inspired by her desire to create a company that shared values around making work and wanting to look at the folklore, the religious traditions, and the culture of African Americans and the African diaspora. The company became a performance ensemble dedicated to exploring the use of cultural expression as a catalyst for social change. Zollar developed a unique approach to enable artists to strengthen their involvement in cultural organizing and civic engagement, which evolved into the company’s acclaimed Summer Leadership Institute.

In addition to creating over 34 works for Urban Bush Women, Zollar has created works for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Philadanco, and many universities across the United States. Her collaborations include Compagnie Jant-Bi from Senegal and Nora Chipaumire. She has recently worked as choreographer for Taylor Mac’s 24-Decade History of American Popular Music and Daniel Fish’s Most Happy in Concert. Zollar directed and choreographed a new Jake Heggie opera, Intelligence, commissioned by Houston Grand Opera in 2023.

The company has toured five continents and was selected as one of three U.S. dance companies to inaugurate a cultural diplomacy program for the U.S. Department of State in 2010. She serves as director of the UBW Summer Leadership Institute, founding and visioning partner of Urban Bush Women, and the Nancy Smith Fichter Professor of Dance and Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor at Florida State University.

Zollar has been a United States Artists Wynn fellow and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial fellow. She holds honorary degrees from Columbia College Chicago, Tufts University, Rutgers University, and Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA.

Zollar has received the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, the Dance Magazine Award, the Dance/USA Honor Award, the “Bessie” Lifetime Achievement in Dance Award for her work in the field, the Dance Teacher Award of Distinction, and the Martha Hill Dance Fund Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2020, The Ford Foundation declared Urban Bush Women one of America’s Cultural Treasures. Zollar has recently been awarded a 2021 John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation fellow, the 2022 APAP Honors Award of Merit for Achievement in the Performing Arts, and the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize.

Photo by Crush Boone

PRESS CONTACT
Katrin Deil
katrin@americandancefestival.org
919-684-6402

ADF’s 2024 performance season will take place from June 13 to July 28 in Durham, NC, with additional pre- and post-performances happening in April, September, and October across the Triangle. The full performance schedule will be announced on March 20. Tickets to ADF performances will go on sale on April 23, 2024. Tickets can be purchased online at americandancefestival.org or the Duke University Box Office.

About ADF:
Throughout its 91-year history, the American Dance Festival has been the home of an art form, attracting artists, audiences, and thousands of students worldwide. By preserving our modern dance heritage, promoting the creation of new works and collaborations, educating generations of dancers through intensive training programs, supporting artists at all stages of their careers, presenting live and screen dance to the public, and developing humanities and international exchange programs, ADF has served as a laboratory for experimentation and innovation. ADF was founded at the Bennington School of Dance and moved to Connecticut College in 1948. For the past 47 years, ADF has taken pride in calling Duke University and Durham home. Since 2012, ADF has managed its first year-round facilities, the Samuel H. Scripps Studios, offering movement classes for students of all ages and abilities, as well as choreographic residencies and outreach programs throughout the community.

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Dom-Sebastian Alexis, a Greensboro native, is a Hip-Hop & Contemporary Juxtaposition Artist trained in various degrees of Street Dance, Social Grooves, and contemporary dance techniques. They have taught at major universities, performed nationwide, and facilitated workshops in England and Canada. Alexis is now the artistic director of the community project Gate City Grooves, teaching youths the true foundation of street culture. Most of their life has been devoted to understanding dance diversity, and they have adopted the concept of “Teaching as a student and learning as a professional.”

Iyun Ashani Harrison is the founder and artistic director of the Durham-based Ballet Ashani – A Contemporary Ballet, formerly Ashani Dances, and professor of dance at Duke University. Harrison collaborates with and presents the work of artists of color and women to expand racial and cultural diversity in ballet to attract new audiences. This is reflected in his most recent work, Giovanni’s Room. Harrison has been described as “an artist of diverse talents with sophisticated musical tastes and an understanding of how to use a bare stage to full effect” (The Seattle Times).

Gavin Stewart and Vanessa Owen are the co-founders of Stewart/Owen Dance, based in Western North Carolina, where they are dedicated to building a thriving dance community. As passionate cross-genre collaborators, they cultivate the craft of storytelling through movement while incorporating work by local writers, filmmakers, and musicians. Stewart and Owen’s “humorous, elegant, and wild” (Seattle Dances) choreography has been presented across the U.S.

Choreographer Stacy Wolfson and her collaborator Curtis Eller, a banjo player and songwriter, are the artistic directors of the Durham-based dance-theater company The Bipeds. Wolfson and Eller have devised a unique compositional approach “to blur modern dance, live music, and theater into a dreamlike unity, not to paste them into a simple collage” (Indy Week). Together, they also curate the dance and live music series Shadowbox Sessions.

ADF Director Jodee Nimerichter has been following the work of each of these artists for multiple years and is delighted to share their artistry with festival audiences. Nimerichter remarked, “NC artists are extremely important to our state. They not only bring beauty into our lives and push us to experience new things, but they provide a positive economic impact to the cities where they live.”

During the next eight months, the artists will each create a 15–20 minute dance work and have the opportunity to use up to 40 hours of rehearsal space at ADF Samuel H. Scripps Studios. ADF’s Production Manager, David Ferri, will design lighting for each new work that will be performed on a shared program as part of ADF’s 2024 season. The artists will also offer masterclasses to the public and ADF students. ADF will announce its entire season in March 2024, and tickets will go on sale through the Duke Box Office later in the spring.

Lead support for Made in NC is provided by a grant from The Mary Duke Biddle Foundation. Made in NC residencies at ADF Samuel H. Scripps Studios are made possible with support from the Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Foundation.

PRESS CONTACT
Katrin Deil
katrin@americandancefestival.org
919-684-6402

About ADF:
Throughout its 90-year history, the American Dance Festival (ADF) has been the home of an art form, attracting artists, audiences, and thousands of students from around the world. By preserving our modern dance heritage, promoting the creation of new works and collaborations, educating generations of dancers through intensive training programs, supporting artists at all stages of their careers, presenting live and screen dance to the public, and developing humanities and international exchange programs, ADF has served as a laboratory for experimentation and innovation. ADF was founded at Bennington College and moved to Connecticut College in 1948. For the past 46 years, ADF has taken pride in calling Duke University and Durham home. ADF also manages its first ever year-round facilities, the Samuel H. Scripps Studios, offering movement classes for students of all ages and abilities as well as choreographic residencies and outreach programs throughout the community.

Photo of Dom-Sebastian Alexis by Aura Marzkou
Photo of Iyun Ashani Harrison by Khalil Goodman
Photo of Gavin Stewart and Vanessa Owen courtesy of Stewart/Owen Dance
Photo of Stacy Wolfson and Curtis Eller by Pamir Kiciman

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“Gerri’s impact on the American Dance Festival’s educational programs over the past four decades has been profound. She has nurtured hundreds of dancers, choreographers, and educators from around the world at different points in their lives. She has helped us share American modern dance techniques, history, and ideas in countries with little or no exposure to this field. And most recently, she has helped us build an even stronger dance community in Durham. We are thrilled to announce that ADF has established the Gerri Houlihan Scholarship Fund in her honor. Our goal is to raise $40,000 within the next two years leading up to her 80th birthday,” stated ADF Executive Director Jodee Nimerichter.

Gerri Houlihan studied at The Juilliard School with Antony Tudor and members of the Martha Graham and José Limón dance companies. She performed with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet Company, the Paul Sanasardo Company, and the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company. From 1991 to 1999, Houlihan directed her own company, Houlihan and Dancers, based in Miami, FL. Houlihan taught at Florida State University, where she was the Pearl S. Tyner Distinguished Professor in Teaching and now Professor Emerita. This summer, Houlihan continues teaching at the ADF Samuel H. Scripps Studios and the ADF School, where she will lead a workshop for professional dance educators from June 25 through July 1. As the founder and artistic director of the Big Red Dance Project, Houlihan leads the multi-generational company in bringing performances to the Triangle. Upcoming Big Red Dance Project performances will take place from May 5 through 7 at the Durham Arts Council.

Click to contribute here: Gerri Houlihan Scholarship Fund. For more information, please contact ADF at (919) 684-6402 or email sbowdoin@americandancefestival.org.

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