Summertime, and the livin’ is easy 🌞

It’s so funny, I find that our “off-season” is nearly as full as our regular season! Since the end of our 24-25 season, we have already performed in 3 events: 

• May 17: Michigan Youth Dance Festival at the University of Michigan, held by Michigan Dance Council

• June 6: Springtide Revival, an enchanted garden party hosted by Resonant Bodies

• June 27-29: Dancing in Summer, the Festival! at Riverside Arts Center, hosted by Terpsichore Collective

And we have a few more before we begin our 25-26 season:

• August 21-22: Shape // Matter Showcase at Liberty Plaza in Ann Arbor

• September 7: Detroit Dance City Festival Summer Stage at the Detroit Institute of Arts, hosted by ArtLab J

• September 24-28: Elgin Fringe Festival in Elgin, IL, hosted by Side Street Studios

My favorite part of these festivals is that I get to meet dancers from all over, growing my community of dancers beyond my own circles. I also love that we get to re-cast and continue working on repertory pieces! It gives me the opportunity to dive further into the creative process as a choreographer, rediscovering the work as each dancer interprets the movement in their own way. 

"Again and again, the Bear," Photo by Awake Dreaming Photography

For the Michigan Youth Dance Festival performance, we had the honor of being one of two professional companies to perform alongside the youth participants. “Again and again, the Bear” was performed this time by Ginger, Mac, and Erin. Erin learned Ashley’s role (Ashley was unavailable for this particular show) in only a couple of weeks, and they rocked it! At Springtide Revival, we brought back our NACHMO 2025 piece, “No Bonking.” I love performing this one, fighting laughter the entire time. And for Dancing in Summer, we performed a second iteration of “Landing.” This piece was made for 6 dancers, but we only had 4 available for this concert! So we re-worked it and now have a 4-person version.

"Landing," Photo by John Sobczak

I’m really looking forward to more opportunities to share these rep pieces in the coming months: We’ll perform “No Bonking” again at Shape // Matter Showcase, and “Landing” at Detroit Dance City Festival. 

Elgin Fringe Festival is its own beast this year. Last year was our first time to participate in EFF. We performed excerpts of our spring concert, “Body Works,” in a short show. This means that we had about 20 minutes of performance time in a shared, 60-minute show. We performed for 3 times total, and it was an incredibly rewarding experience! This year, we are performing a full show ourselves! “Gender Reveal Party” is a gender equity themed program including a group piece called “Gender Reveal Party,” as well as rep pieces “Stretch Marks” and “Drudgery, Departed.” More on Elgin Fringe in the coming months!