The ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Dance Festival presents Sean Dorsey Dance with “The Missing Generation.” (Lydia Daniller)

Sean Dorsey presents the East Coast premiere of “The Missing Generation,” a dance-theater production that explores the impact of the 1980s AIDS crisis, in ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Dance Festival performances at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Saturday, July 16 and 18, in Schaeffer Theatre, 329 College St.

Admission is $25 for adults, $18 for seniors and $12 for students. For information about ordering tickets, please visit the festival website — — or call the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ box office at 207-786-6161.

A powerful fusion of full-throttle dancing, luscious partnering, intimate storytelling and highly physical theater, “The Missing Generation” features real-life stories layered with Dorsey’s writing and a haunting original score. This moving portrait of contemporary American history is heartbreakingly beautiful and profoundly relevant to our times.

The company offers a Show & Tell lecture-demonstration at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 14, in Schaeffer. Dance writer Debra Cash gives an Inside Dance pre-performance lecture at 7 p.m. on July 18. A talkback with the artists follows both concerts.

Sean Dorsey. (Lydia Daniller)

Dorsey has been a frequent presence at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ during the past year, including a two-week teaching residency last fall.

A Bay Area choreographer, dancer and writer, Dorsey is the United States’ first critically acclaimed transgender modern dance choreographer. He has received two Isadora Duncan Dance Awards and the Goldie Award for Performance, and has been named one of the “Top Ten” San Francisco dance artists by both the Bay Guardian and the Bay Area Reporter.

Dorsey was named one of the nation’s “Top 25 to Watch” by Dance Magazine, and his company was honored as “San Francisco’s Best Dance Company” by SF Weekly.

Dorsey has been awarded grants and commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts, National Dance Project, National Performance Network, Creative Work Fund, Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, James Irvine Foundation and the San Francisco Arts Commission.

His recent piece “The Secret History Of Love” received rave reviews and toured to more than 20 U.S. cities including Boston, Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Lewiston, Maine. Learn more:

About the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Dance Festival

Founded in 1982 at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College, the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Dance Festival brings together an international community of contemporary choreographers, performers, educators and students in a cooperative community to study, perform and create new work.

The festival serves as an annual destination for artists, students and audiences to engage in a full range of activities and performances that foster a creative exchange of ideas, encourage exploration of new ground and provide access to a wide spectrum of dance and movement disciplines.

At press time, support for the 2015 season has been provided by ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New England Foundation for the Arts, National Performance Network, Maine Arts Commission, Maine Humanities Council, Leonard C. and Mildred F. Ferguson Foundation, Lewiston-Auburn Children’s Home, the firm of Norman, Hansen & DeTroy, Platz Associates, the Onion Foundation, the Sequoia Foundation, the Shapiro Family Foundation and generous individual donors.

Under the auspices of The ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Merck Fellowhsip Program in Biology and Chemistry, Merck will discuss The Invention and Development of CRIXIVAN: An HIV Protease Inhibitor at 4 p.m. in Room 204 of Carnegie Science Hall. He will deliver his second lecture of the day, AIDS Therapy: The Power of Combination Treatments, at 7 p.m. in Chase Hall Lounge. Geared more toward a general audience, this second talk will address the increased effectiveness of anti-HIV and anti-AIDS drugs when used together.

Dorsey is part of the Merck research team that developed CRIXIVAN, an effective drug in the protease inhibitor class used to combat HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Jones, the recipient of a MacArthur “genius grant,” will discuss his experience with HIV and AIDS, the reasons he choreographed and performed “Still/Here” and the impact of AIDS on the world of art. His appearance at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ is part of a series of talks, observances and performances organized by the college under the umbrella of “Shared Rights, Shared Responsibilities — Understanding AIDS: Compassion, Education, Justice.”

Jones is the author of the recently published autobiography, Last Night On Earth (Pantheon, 1997). Prior to founding the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in 1982, Jones choreographed and performed internationally as a soloist and as part of a duet company with his late partner Arnie Zane. In addition to choreographing more than 40 works for his own company, he has been commissioned to create pieces for other companies, including the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the Boston Ballet and the Lyon Opera where he was appointed resident choreographer in 1993.

Jones has also directed a number of operatic and theatrical works for the Guthrie Theater, the Houston Grand Opera, the Glynbourne Festival Opera, the Munich Biennale and the BBC. He has been the subject of several documentaries, including The Making of the ‘Last Supper At Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ and a forthcoming PBS production on the making of “Still/Here,” produced by Bill Moyers. Jones and media artist Gretchen Bender have directed a television version of “Still/Here” scheduled to appear in 1996.

Jones’ work often explores the issues of race, sexual orientation and interracial relationships. The poet Maya Angelou said of Jones’ 1995 autobiography: “It is a rare thing for a person to have the courage to live a strenuous and challenging life and be able to find beauty in it. It is more rare, and in this case more valuable, that Bill T. Jones has been able to do the above and dance about it. I celebrate this book, this artistry and this life.”