* In her first full season as director of the Bates Dance Festival, Shoshona Currier will bring together artists from Cairo to Chicago to explore the absurdity of rules, the power of civic connectedness and outside masculinity, among other themes.
The festival opens July 5 and runs through Aug. 4 at Bates College in Lewiston. The festival brings together dancers for training and performance and features concerts, lectures and community events.
Among the returning artists are Sean Dorsey and Rennie Harris. Maine-based artist Sara Juli performs her piece “The Lectern: rule by rule by rule” with collaborator Claire Porter.
The festival opens with “Mycelial: Street Parliament,” a U.S. premiere of a collaboration between Chicago-based Erica Mott Production and a group of dancers and musicians from Egypt.
Tickets for all performances go on sale June 1. batesdancefestival.org
* In each of the past two summers, choreographer Alison Chase has presented innovative multimedia performances around Maine, touring in 2016 with a production called “Dancing with Steel” and last summer with “No Plan B,” a multimedia event of light, projection, music and movement that she presented in a huge circus tent. Chase, best known as the founding artistic director of Pilobolus Dance Theater, will tour again this summer with a family-friendly daytime performance and a nighttime performance that will revive “No Plan B” with other works.
Details are still being worked out, but she plans to present it July 18-22 somewhere in Portland and July 26-29 at Fort Knox in Prospect. alisonchase.org
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