Is summer time changing into dance’s busiest season? There are extra thrilling performances taking place than anyone individual may hope to see this July and August. Listed below are the highlights from six main festivals, plus three must-sees from outdoors that umbrella.
Summer season Fest Particular
Highlights from a jam-packed competition season
American Dance Competition
DURHAM, NC Following the competition debuts of Wally Cardona and Molly Lieber, Jesse Issue, I-Ling Liu and Stacy Matthew Spence, and Pioneer Winter Collective, and the ever-intriguing Made in NC program of premieres (this 12 months by Tracey Durbin, Jabu Graybeal, Courtney Liu, and Amanda Okay. Miller), July begins with Tere O’Connor’s 2025 The Lace and a set of Mark Morris items set to American music. Pam Tanowitz premieres a brand new work for the Paul Taylor Dance Firm, and Guangdong Trendy Dance Firm joins Shen Wei Dance Arts for the U.S. premiere of Shen Wei’s latest Mindscape, each ADF co-commissions. And Stephan Koplowitz goes site-specific together with his contribution to the Footprints program: ADF college students carry out his new work at Mutual Tower, which was constructed as an emblem of Durham’s Black Wall Road. Could 27–July 25. americandancefestival.org.
Jacob’s Pillow Dance Competition
BECKET, MA The beloved competition presents a really staggering array of performances and supplementary programming throughout 10 weeks and three levels this summer time. Two premieres on the Doris Duke Theatre—Ilya Vidrin’s Proxies and Brian Brooks’ Elsewhere—reap the benefits of interactive expertise. Rena Butler crafts a brand new work for Gauthier Dance, which brings alongside a further 9 U.S. premieres. Additionally debuting stateside are Kyle Abraham’s White House and Circa Modern Circus’ Wolf. Huang Yi and Shamel Pitts | TRIBE make their competition debuts, as do no fewer than 11 artists and firms acting on the out of doors Henry J. Leir stage. And San Francisco Ballet pulls double responsibility, showing at each the Leir and the Ted Shawn Theatre in its first Pillow engagement since 1956. June 24–Aug. 30. jacobspillow.org.
Bates Dance Competition
LEWISTON, ME The efficiency sequence kicks off with the premiere of Flip. Turning. TURNT, which Cynthia Oliver developed throughout her 2025 competition residency. Kyle Marshall’s joyfully queer Femenine, set to Julius Eastman’s rating by the identical title; Leslie Cuyjet’s incisive, tour-de-force solo For All Your Life; and Jesse Issue’s riotous Martha-Graham-meets-Madonna spectacle The Marthaodyssey spherical out the main-stage choices. Additionally on faucet are work-in-progress showings by Cara Hagan, Miguel Gutierrez, and Dan Safer and Thomas F. DeFrantz; a one-night movie competition in collaboration with Flatlands Dance Movie Competition; and the annual structured improv efficiency Shifting within the Second. July 10–31. batesdancefestival.org.
Venice Biennale
VENICE Australian Indigenous dance theater firm (and this 12 months’s Golden Lion recipient) Bangarra Dance Theatre presents a European debut, with Frances Rings’ Terrain, as does Silver Lion winner Mamela Nyamza, along with her work The Herd/Much less. When, If Not Now? (WINNDance) a brand new dance firm comprising artists ages 40 and over, launches with the premiere of Scirocco, a Biennale co-commission from John Neumeier, Imre and Marne van Opstal, and Omar Román de Jesús, plus a movie contribution directed and choreographed by Javier de Frutos. Andrea Salustri and Oli Mathiesen premiere new works after profitable the Biennale’s nationwide and worldwide choreography calls, respectively. And American postmodernist Molissa Fenley closes out the festivities with a double invoice of her State of Darkness (danced by Cassandra Trenary) and Bardo, from 1990, reprised by Fenley herself. July 17–Aug. 1. labiennale.org.
Vail Dance Competition
VAIL, CO The late-summer gathering celebrates 20 years below Damian Woetzel’s directorship. Robert Battle, Chun Wai Chan, Michelle Dorrance, Larry Keigwin, Tiler Peck, Alexei Ratmansky (this 12 months’s artist in residence), Pam Tanowitz, and Amanda Treiber create new works for the who’s who roster of dancers in attendance. Rennie Harris Puremovement makes its competition debut with Nuttin’ however a Phrase, whereas Martha Graham Dance Firm continues its centennial celebrations and Colorado Ballet and Cleo Parker Robinson Dance share a night devoted to the competition’s dwelling state. July 31–Aug. 10. vaildance.org.
Edinburgh Worldwide Competition
EDINBURGH The dance programming kicks off with the UK premiere of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s Ihsane, which contemplates cycles of destruction and rebirth and pays tribute to a homosexual Moroccan man who was murdered in Belgium, carried out by dancers from Eastman and Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, Aug. 18–20. In EXXY (Aug. 23), queer, disabled dance-theater artist Dan Daw transports audiences again to his working-class origins to interrogate the character of self-belief in a society that devalues these identities. Groupwork presents When Prophecy Fails, in regards to the crumbling of a fictional American doomsday cult, Aug. 27–30. And, lastly, San Francisco Ballet opens Pandora’s field with the European premiere of Aszure Barton’s AI-inspired reimagining of that fable, Mere Mortals, Aug. 28–30. eif.co.uk.
Lincoln Heart Leans Modern
NEW YORK CITY Over the previous couple of years, Lincoln Heart for the Performing Arts has more and more invested in its Summer season for the Metropolis programming, which this season contains the launch of its Pasculano Collaborative for Modern Dance. Below its auspices, the inaugural Lincoln Heart Modern Dance Competition at Alice Tully Corridor closes with the U.S. premiere of Akram Khan’s Thikra: Evening of Remembering (July 2–5), a desert-inspired work for an all-female solid mixing bharatanatyam and modern dance. Additionally notable amongst the smorgasbord of the middle’s dance choices: Tamisha A. Man’s new Within the Depths of Blue descends on the David Rubenstein Atrium on Aug. 1, whereas butoh artist Vangeline premieres Naiad Metallic, a site-responsive work created for the Milstein Reflecting Pool (and a part of Pasculano’s Dance Encounters programming), Aug. 5–8. lincolncenter.org.
Spreading Soul
NEW YORK CITY For Philadanco, the inimitable Rennie Harris creates a brand new work impressed by the catalog of Philadelphia Worldwide Data, which helped unfold Philly soul within the Seventies and ‘80s. Additionally on the docket for the corporate’s Joyce Theater engagement: Thang Dao’s Roked, Tommie-Waheed Evans’ Promise Me You Received’t Name, and Christopher Huggins’ Enemy Behind the Gates, which is marking its twenty fifth anniversary. July 29–Aug. 2. joyce.org.
Let It Simmer
BOISE AND PORTLAND LED closes the inaugural season of its Dixon efficiency venue with SUMMER SOUP, a collaborative program with Portland’s Open House that includes choreography by Lauren Edson (LED’s director), Franco Nieto (Open House’s), and extra. After debuting in Boise Aug. 20–22, this system strikes to Portland, OR, Aug. 27–29. ledboise.com.