Well-educated elites are no strangers to white supremacy — The Washington Post

After the violence in Charlottesville, �ֲ���ý faculty lecturer Christopher Petrella ’06 saying that our conventional wisdom that “it’s impossible to be both a white supremacist and a well-educated white American” is “both dangerous and historically inaccurate.”

In fact, he says, white supremacy has “not gestated on the fringes of American politics” but “flourished as a social movement grounded in respectability politics and led by elites.”

Christopher Petrella ’06 makes a point during a meeting of the college’s Justice and Equity Reading Group on Sept. 13, 2017. Petrella, faculty lecturer and associate director of programs for the Office of Equity and Diversity, is the group organizer. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Believing otherwise “allows middle-class and college-educated white Americans to escape responsibility for extirpating this stain on our society.”

Petrella, who is also an associate director of programs in the Office of Equity and Diversity at �ֲ���ý, is completing his first book, on the history of white supremacy in 20th-century New England.

Social activism thrives in Maine’s fine art world — Portland Monthly

For , art critic Dan Kany interviews several Maine “art agitators,” including �ֲ���ý Museum of Art Director Dan Mills, who “represent the range and reality of Maine artists who dare to disturb, incite, and stir social engagement.”

Mills, who co-curated the first exhibition of Saudi contemporary art in New England, Phantom Punch: Contemporary Art from Saudi Arabia in Lewiston, is also an artist whose work has been exhibited in leading galleries in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

Mills’ “large-scale paintings on maps….use nuanced visual systems to redirect and provoke deeper understanding of demographic and map-related data,” Kany says.

Mills says that art “is only one facet or tool” for social change. “Unless the art rises to being culturally embraced beyond the art world and covered in the media, its scope is limited.”

Dan Mills’ painting “Current Wars and Conflicts Killed by Continent, Book 02,” ink, watercolor, and gouache on atlas, 15 1/4 x 22 1/2 x 2 inches.

Retiring �ֲ���ý Dance Festival director Faure “put Maine on the map” — Portland Press Herald

Laura Faure, who retires Nov. 30 after directing the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival for 30 of its 35 years, is known as “a fierce advocate for choreographers and dance in its many forms,” said Aimee Petrin, executive and artistic director at Portland Ovations.

Faure, who was profiled by , said that the “life of a dancer is a tough life, and what we offer is support and a safe space.” She added, “We support artists through the arc of their career, and I am so proud of that.”

Retiring �ֲ���ý Dance Festival Director Laura Faure poses with noted South African dancer and choreographer Vincent Mantsoe during one of her visits to Africa. Mantsoe has taken part several times in the festival’s International Visiting Artists Program. (�ֲ���ý Dance Festival)

Keyes said that Faure “helped establish the festival as a destination for dancers and choreographers to refine, perfect and expand their skills, establish new work, and experiment with ideas and collaborations.”

“We have created an environment that didn’t exist in the dance world and that is based in the democratic and egalitarian model that is �ֲ���ý College,” Faure said.

Faure will be succeeded by Shoshona Currier, who began her work in August.

Shaw’s veterinary health tech firm secures $223 million investment — Portland Press Herald

Vets First Choice of Portland, founded by CEO Ben Shaw ’00, received a $223 million investment in July that will “accelerate the company’s growth and hiring, launch new services and begin a global expansion effort into Europe and Asia,” according to .

Father and son entrepreneurs David Shaw and Ben Shaw ’00 consult before their May 5 talk, “Adventures in Business and Social Entrepreneurship,” part of the spring’s “Purposeful Work: Voices in Entrepreneurship” series. David Shaw returned to �ֲ���ý at Commencement to receive an honorary degree. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

“The venture capital funding represents the largest sum invested at one time in a privately held Maine company in at least two decades, and possibly ever,” Anderson reported.

Vets First Choice offers e-commerce pharmaceutical services to veterinary clinics.

Also in July, Shaw was recognized by Ernst & Young as a .

Atomic physicists will soon make ultracold states of matter on the space station — Science

When NASA’s $70 million Cold Atom Laboratory arrives at the International Space Station in early 2018, it will carry out a select few research experiments, including one designed by Associate Professor of Physics Nathan Lundblad.

In its Sept. 8 story, Science reporter Adrian Cho described a few of the projects, , noting that the Cold Atom Laboratory will “take advantage of weightlessness to attain record-low temperatures and break ground for ambitious studies of quantum mechanics and gravity.”

Physics major Dan Paseltiner ’16 narrates this short film about the �ֲ���ý experiment that will be aboard the Cold Atom Laboratory.

Weightlessness, plus the lab’s near-absolute-zero temperature, will “produce a long-predicted state of matter called a Bose-Einstein condensate, in which the atoms shed their individual identities and crowd en masse into a single quantum wave.”

Cho said that Lundblad’s experiment hopes to create “hollow shells of BECs,” like bubbles, something “that gravity squashes on Earth.” If successful, the shells might allow researchers “to probe the wave nature of the BEC in a new way.”

The other experiments were designed by scientists from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the universities of Colorado, Michigan, Rochester, Virginia, and California at Berkeley.

Commentary on why parents shouldn’t be told the sex of their fetus — Journal of Medical Ethics

Professor of Sociology Emily Kane, the author of The Gender Trap: Parents and the Pitfalls of Raising Boys and Girls, joined a sociological discussion about the common practice of parents learning the sex of their unborn child.

In an article published last year in the Journal of Medical Ethics, Tamara Kayali Browne of the Australian National University argued that .

Disclosure of the sex, she said, invariably leads parents to anticipate a child’s gender. Since “the conflation of sex with gender is implicit” when the sex of a fetus is disclosed, “it may be more accurate to refer to [disclosure] as misinformation.”

Professor of Sociology Emily Kane delivers her Convocation address, “Summer Posts, Fall Possibilities,” on Sept. 5, 2017 (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

In , she said that while other experts can weigh in on the feasibility of withholding such information, she agrees with Browne that both child and society would benefit by postponing “the gendered anticipation” that prenatal sex information encourages.

Given what we now know about the vast difference between gender and sex, postponing might “chip away productively at the vast network of social processes that constrain children and conflate sex with gender.”

Harvard names new diversity dean — The Harvard Crimson

Harvard Dean of Students Katherine G. O’Dair announced the appointment of Roland Davis ’92 as associate dean for diversity and inclusion, on Aug. 31.

Roland Davis ’92 is the new associate dean for diversity and inclusion at Harvard.

Davis “brings to Harvard a deep and nuanced understanding of the social, cultural, and psychological factors that impact communities around the issues of diversity and inclusion,” she wrote.

Davis’ appointment, the Crimson said, “coincides with the implementation of…penalties on members of single-gender social organizations,” such as barring members of these groups from “campus leadership positions, athletic team captaincies, and certain prestigious fellowships.”

A former dean in Student Affairs at �ֲ���ý, Davis served as the college’s founding director of the Office of Intercultural Education from 2010 to 2012.

Building products that people want to use — The Silicon Review

In its review of the 10 fastest-growing software companies, , a software engineering firm co-founded by Ben Schippers ’04.

The Review said that in the “ocean” of apps that exists today, Schipper’s company “is generating its mark by building thoughtful products” that “people want to use.”

Ben Schippers ’04 is co-founder of the Brooklyn-based software engineering firm HappyFunCorp. (Phyllis Graber Jensen)

One of HappyFunCorp’s recent products was an app allowing onto TV-based platforms, including Apple TV.

Portland’s restaurant  boom reflects the “simplicity of living here, and honoring individual ingredients” — American Way Magazine

Portland, Maine, is home to 672 dining establishments, according to , “giving it a human-to-restaurant ratio of roughly 96-to-1,” which is lower than “almost every other city in America (San Francisco can make a similar claim).”

For insights on the boom, writer Alexandra Hall turned to award-winning restaurateur Andrew Taylor ’03, who said that it’s about the “simplicity of living here, and honoring individual ingredients.” He said, “People here are averse to big: big corporations, big restaurants.”

Taylor and Mike Wiley are chef/co-owners, with their manager, Arlin Smith, of Eventide Oyster Co., The Honey Paw, and Hugo’s. The pair won a , considered an Oscar of the food world.

James Beard winner Andrew Taylor ’03 poses at his restaurant Eventide with Matthew Moretti ’06, president of Bangs Island Mussels and Wild Ocean Aquaculture, on Sept. 26 2016. Bangs mussels are featured at Eventide and exemplify Taylor’s commitment to the local food economy. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ���ý college).

Preparing for the football season and for what’s ahead after graduation — WMTV-TV

WMTV-TV sports anchor Travis Lee , a chemistry major from Cumberland Center, Maine, who plans to enter the medical field after graduation.

Over the summer, Rasch traveled to Haiti with International Medical Relief to “get involved in some sort of medical experience outside the U.S. in a culture that I’m not used to.”

Rasch says that football, specifically a lineman’s job to communicate with teammates during “drastically changing circumstances,” will help him down the road. “I am able to communicate with people in a large group and help get people on the same page.”

“Whatever I do for a living, I want to make sure that it has a good deal of purpose. That way I can dedicate myself fully to it.”

Photographed at her current workplace, the Chicago Cultural Center, Shoshona Currier succeeds Laura Faure as the director of the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival. (Mark Hackman)

Shoshona Currier, director of performing arts for the city of Chicago, has been appointed as the next director of the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival, an internationally renowned teaching and performance series held every summer at �ֲ���ý College.

A Maine native with more than 15 years of experience in arts curation, education, and administration, Currier succeeds Laura Faure, who retires Nov. 30 after 30 seasons with the festival.

“�ֲ���ý is thrilled to welcome Shoshona Currier as the new director of the ,” says Matt Auer, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty at �ֲ���ý. “Shoni’s credentials as a curator, presenter, and community-builder are outstanding. And her multimedia performing-arts expertise promises to keep the festival moving in new and exciting directions.”

As performing arts director with , Currier has developed the aesthetic vision for all civic theater and dance offerings, and has directly programmed city-run venues such as the Chicago Cultural Center and Jay Pritzker Pavilion. Her purview has encompassed curatorial and managerial direction, as well as the administration and development of a $1 million budget.

“I’m extremely pleased to be passing the festival baton to Shoni Currier this fall,” says Faure. “Shoni has a truly impressive track record of achievement in the performing arts.”

“Joining the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival is a really thrilling opportunity,” says Currier, who worked as a producer and artistic director in New York and elsewhere before taking the Chicago position in 2012.

“I’m excited about taking everything that I’ve learned and bringing it to such a prestigious and well-respected program, as well as returning to a state that I love so much.”

“I’m extremely pleased to be passing the festival baton to Shoni Currier this fall,” says Faure. “Shoni has a truly impressive track record of achievement in the performing arts. She brings a wealth of experience, passion, and commitment to this new role, and I’m confident she’ll lead the festival to even greater heights in the years to come.”

“I look forward to working with Shoni to hand over leadership through a thoughtful, collaborative process that will insure a successful transition and bright future for the festival.”

Currier is taking charge of one of the so-called Big Three of American dance festivals, along with Jacob’s Pillow and the American Dance Festival. Last summer, the six-week �ֲ���ý festival welcomed 270 students and 93 faculty, performers, and visiting artists, and presented nine mainstage performances that included such dance luminaries as Michelle Dorrance and Doug Varone. The festival presents its 35th season in 2017.

Currier’s tenure in Chicago started out with a large-scale strategic planning process, as she oversaw a fundamental reorganization of multiple dance, theater, and music programs. In reimagining the municipal performing arts division, she enlisted a new creative team and established best practices and processes for the division.

Currier has developed critically acclaimed civic performance series including SpinOff, focusing on contemporary dance by Midwestern artists, and the boundary-pushing OnEdge program. She has strived to bring large-scale public performance works to under-resourced parts of Chicago, aiming to ensure “that arts are relevant and accessible to many communities,” she says.

Riley Watts is one of the artists featured July 28-29 in gala performances marking the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival’s 35th anniversary season. (Susan Beard)

Among other accomplishments, she curated 10 ARTventure tours for the 2015 Americans for the Arts Convention, held in Chicago for the first time. Itineraries included a graffiti tour and a dance tour featuring the Joffrey Ballet and Hubbard Street Dance.

Outside of DCASE, Currier has served as a producing consultant for STAGE Lab, a program for STEM-inspired theater projects in the Institute for Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago. As a member of the Chicago Dance Makers Forum, a grantmaking consortium, Currier has worked closely with local dance artists.

She was born in Fort Kent, Maine, and grew up in the southern Maine town of Windham. Before taking the Chicago directorship, she held creative and administrative positions at Dance New Amsterdam, Performance Space 122, and the Snug Harbor Cultural Center, all in New York City; and the Fusebox Festival, in Austin, Texas.

She was a member of the inaugural class at Wesleyan University’s Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance, and also studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and at the New School, where she earned a bachelor of science degree.

Another highlight of the festival’s 35th season is “Mill Town”: Choreographed by Stephan Koplowitz, this immersive performance event features 50 dancers with live music, video and installations in and around the �ֲ���ý Mill Complex.

Laura Faure was a dancer, teacher, and arts administrator — in addition to farming for 10 years — when she began her tenure as �ֲ���ý Dance Festival director in 1987, following Elizabeth Zimmer, Andrea Stark, and co-directors Frank Wicks and Marcy Plavin. Plavin, who originated the �ֲ���ý College dance program, founded the festival.

“One of the parts of my job that I love the most is my close relationship with artists, my ability to help artists do their work,” Faure said in a 2012 interview. “I feel like I am very much a curator and creator in some way and that the festival is my choreography.”

Under Faure’s leadership, the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival has evolved into a leading center for contemporary dance nationally and internationally. Her support, both material and moral, has enabled some of the nation’s most-respected choreographers to create groundbreaking work at the festival.

Taking place July 7–Aug. 5, the festival’s 35th season is something special.

In turn, many of those same artists have returned during the academic year to perform and work with �ֲ���ý students. Bebe Miller, Doug Varone, and David Dorfman are a few of the choreographers and company leaders who have returned repeatedly to the festival over the decades to teach, perform, and develop new work.

Taking place July 7–Aug. 5, the s something special, Faure points out. “It has been designed to celebrate the vibrancy of contemporary dance, to pay tribute to some of the exceptional artists who have contributed to the BDF legacy, and to highlight the importance of building community through the arts.”

This summer’s festival will showcase new and signature works by David Dorfman, Doug Varone, Bebe Miller, Larry Keigwin, Sara Pearson and Patrik Widrig, among many others. Faure’s final �ֲ���ý Dance Festival as director will conclude on a high and historic note with “Mill Town,” a site-specific performance designed by Stephan Koplowitz and taking place at the historic �ֲ���ý Mill Complex.

Twenty-nine years, hundreds of performances, and countless classes after she arrived, the director of the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival has announced plans to retire.

Laura Faure, the fourth director in the history of the festival, will step down after the 2017 season — the festival’s 35th and her 30th.

“Thirty years seems like a really good stretch,” says the 66-year-old Faure. “It just feels organically like the right time.”

Faure will turn over to her successor one of the nation’s leading dance festivals. During three decades at the helm, she has dramatically expanded the numbers of students, faculty-performers, and spectators attending the six-week festival. She has made the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival an international presence.

Laura Faure, director of the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival, poses with Finn on the �ֲ���ý campus in July 2012. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

She is at the center of a wide and robust network of dance artists, presenters, and funders. Her support, both material and moral, has enabled some of the nation’s most-respected choreographers to create groundbreaking work. In turn, many of those same artists have returned during the academic year to work with �ֲ���ý students.

“We are indebted to Laura for her leadership of the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival over the past 30 years,” says �ֲ���ý President Clayton Spencer.

“The �ֲ���ý Dance Festival has long stood for quality and innovation in dance education and dance-making. But the festival is also a force for good on many other levels. It has enriched and strengthened the college’s academic dance program, served as a powerful cultural engine for our region, and functioned as a wonderful ambassador for �ֲ���ý in the larger world.”

Laura Faure, front row at right, poses in Alumni Gym in July 2011 with members of the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival’s Young Dancers Workshop faculty. (�ֲ���ý Dance Festival)

National Endowment for the Arts peer review panels, says NEA Director of Dance Douglas Sonntag, “have consistently cited the value of the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival to the overall health of the American dance field.

“The festival has been a longtime grantee of the NEA precisely because of the excellence it brings to the training of young dancers, the nurturing atmosphere it provides choreographers, and the performance opportunities it provides to a broad aesthetic range of dance companies.”

The late Marcy Plavin, creator of �ֲ���ý’ academic dance program, launched the summer festival at the suggestion of the college’s then-president, Hedley Reynolds. The inaugural season in 1983 attracted 70 students and seven faculty-performers, and presented four performances by visiting artists.

Professor of Dance Carol Dilley, left, and �ֲ���ý Dance Festival Director Laura Faure observe the last minutes of a three-week modern dance class taught in 2015 by Omar Carrum in the Gray Athletic Building. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

That was a promising start. And by summer 2016, Faure was overseeing a teaching and performance operation involving 270 students; 93 faculty, performers, and visiting artists; and nine mainstage performances.

But the evolution of the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival under Faure is about much more than numbers. And if you were to distill it to one word, that would be “community.”

One of Faure’s greatest accomplishments has been to build on a characteristic embodied by Plavin: a dedication to egalitarianism, collaboration, and mutual support, rather than competition.

“The performing arts world can feel competitive,” says Marlee Weinberg ’10, who attended three festivals as a student and three more as a counselor. “But at the �ֲ���ý festival I never felt a competitive energy. It was all about the experience, all about learning, and expressing and facilitating creativity.”

�ֲ���ý Dance Festival students perform in a July 26 showcase in Alumni Gymnasium. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ���ý College)

“Laura has been extremely committed to that ethos,” says Suzanne Carbonneau ’76, a dance historian and critic, professor of performance at George Mason University, and longtime scholar-in-residence at the �ֲ���ý festival. “That is something that she has never tried to change, and in fact has continued to deepen throughout her tenure.”

That ethos, Carbonneau adds, “is absolutely unique” among the so-called Big Three of American dance festivals — Jacobs Pillow and the American Dance Festival, in addition to �ֲ���ý.

“She balances creating a festival as a presenter, as an educator, and as a supporter of artists,” says Associate Professor of Dance Rachel Boggia, who directs �ֲ���ý’ academic-year dance program and has taken part in virtually every festival since 2005. “Those three things could be in tension, and she finds a way to bring them together.”

One of South Africa’s best-known choreographers and dancers, Vincent Mantsoe poses with �ֲ���ý Dance Festival Director Laura Faure during one of her visits to Africa. Mantsoe has taken part several times in the festival’s International Visiting Artists Program. (�ֲ���ý Dance Festival)

In short, Faure is a curator of community. Faure seeks out faculty and artists who are not only exceptional creators, performers, and teachers but, equally important, are also generous and caring, Boggia says.

“There’s always a dialogue going on,” Faure says. “I’ve always said that the festival has been a collective effort with really good ideas coming from here, there, and everywhere.”

And this exchange of ideas and experience continues outside class hours. The festival has a longtime custom of bringing students, visiting artists, and faculty together for every meal. And there’s a cherished tradition of front-porch conversations that go deep into the evening at the houses on Frye Street where performers and faculty stay.

“That’s where some of the most transformative learning happens,” Boggia says.

What strengths has Faure brought to the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival? “She has incredible force of will,” Carbonneau says, coupled with great persuasiveness, resourcefulness, and ingenuity.

Moreover, “where other presenters look for the newest, shiniest, flavor-of-the-month art to burnish their reputations, Laura has committed to a long-term faith in a core group of artists,” she adds. “She has provided a kind of career-long support that seems all but impossible to find in the current cultural climate.”

Bebe Miller, Doug Varone, and David Dorfman are a few of the choreographers and company leaders who have returned repeatedly to the festival over the decades to teach, perform, and develop new work.

Choregrapher David Dorfman directs a rehearsal at Lewiston’s New Beginnings as part of a 2014 project featuring Dorfman’s company and dancers from Turkey and Armenia. Dorfman is a familar presence at the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival. (Sarah Crosby/�ֲ���ý College)

“They know that they have a home at �ֲ���ý and that they will be supported over time,” Faure says. “They have a place to come and make work, and to teach, and to be with their peers.”

Festival support for artists includes programs for emerging choreographers and international visiting artists, as well as occasional commissions or co-commissions, such as Sean Dorsey’s “The Missing Generation,” which made its East Coast debut at the festival in 2015.

All told, the festival’s performance series has fostered the development and presentation of hundreds of new works, such as Rennie Harris’s “Rome & Jewels,” that have gone on to national and international acclaim.

Youth Arts Program participants perform in the 2011 �ֲ���ý Dance Festival. (Arthur Fink/�ֲ���ý Dance Festival)

Some of the festival’s best-loved works have been major site-specific pieces that, pushing the creative possibilities to the edge, have introduced new ways of seeing familiar campus and local landmarks — such as a downtown Lewiston mill building (Varone’s 1992 “A Momentary Order”) and �ֲ���ý’ own Lake Andrews (2007’s “Paradise Pond” by PearsonWidrig Dance Theater).

For adult dancers, the festival has offered a three-week professional training program since its inception. Faure added a second three-week workshop program for teenage dancers in 1996.

In 1993, she established the Youth Arts Program, a community outreach initiative that provides performing and visual arts classes to young people aged 7–16.

“Giving local young people access to artists of the caliber that we bring to the festival is, to me, a no-brainer,” Faure says. “If artists are coming to Lewiston, let’s get Lewiston kids involved.”

Faure has also walked the walk when it comes to diversity and inclusiveness at the festival, through scholarships and through assertive recruiting and network-building efforts at, for example, performing arts high schools in major cities.

The festival is a founding member of the Africa Contemporary Arts Consortium, a national program that promotes the exchange of arts and ideas between the U.S. and the African continent. That’s just one aspect of the festival’s international reach; Faure also travels extensively abroad, as well as in the U.S., to scout artists and recruit students.

Laura Faure, center, is shown with members of the dance festival’s International Visiting Artists Program in 2009 in �ֲ���ý’ Alumni Gym: from left, Nigerian artist Qudus Onikeku, Jose Jay B. Cruz of the Philippines, Faure, Opiyo Okach of Kenya and France, and Ivory Coast artist Michel Kouakou. (�ֲ���ý Dance Festival)

Ultimately for Faure, though, dance is the vehicle for a higher end. “Laura has built a community for the dance world,” says Weinberg. “And I think that this community that she built is almost like a microcosm of the way Laura wishes the world to be. She has set up this festival that brings people together in a noncompetitive, open, creative setting.”

Faure says, “There’s something unique and very fundamental about dance as an art form: Because it deals with the body, it’s a form that never lies, because the body doesn’t lie. There’s something profoundly truthful and human about making art through the body, with the body.”

Long term, she expects to remain involved in dance, and the arts more generally, as a freelance consultant and curator. But immediately after the 2017 festival winds up, her top priority is some time off.

Although students, audiences, and esteemed modern dance artists attend the festival for just six weeks each summer, the director’s role is full time. “I’ve had deadlines every week all year round,” Faure says. “I’m ready to have a shift.”

She adds, “I am incredibly lucky. I’ve been appreciated in an overwhelming way by generations of students and artists because of what we’ve created. That is extraordinary and so rare.”

Laura Faure, �ֲ���ý Dance Festival director, does a turn with Shamou, her husband and a festival musician, as the festival’s 2012 Musicians’ Concert draws to a close at the Franco Center in Lewiston. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Keigwin + Company photograph by Matthew Murphy.

The opening days of August 2012 bring fresh excitement to Lewiston stages as the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival’s 30th anniversary season presents both the popular Musicians’ Concert on Aug. 1 and, for the following three evenings, performances by festival favorites Keigwin + Company.

Weaving a tapestry of original and improvised music from global sounds, �ֲ���ý Dance Festival composers and instrumentalists present the Musician’s Concert at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 1, at the Franco-American Heritage Center, 46 Cedar St.

Tickets cost $14 for the general public and $7 for students and seniors. Seating is by general admission. For more information or to buy tickets online, .

Presenting four Maine premieres, Larry Keigwin and his dancers perform at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, Aug. 2-4, in Schaeffer Theatre, 305 College St. The Saturday performance is a one-of-a-kind gala event followed by an anniversary party with the artists.

Tickets cost $50 for the Aug. 4 gala performance-party package; and for all performances, $24 for the general public, $18 for seniors and $12 for students. For more information or to buy tickets online, please visit the website.

All �ֲ���ý Dance Festival tickets may also be purchased by phone at 207-786-6161, or by mail or in person; .

Keigwin + Company offer a free lecture-demonstration at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 31, in Schaeffer. A discussion with the artists immediately follows the Aug. 2 performance. Dance writer Debra Cash offers an Inside Dance: Understanding Contemporary Performance lecture prior to the Aug. 3 performance, at 7:15 p.m. in Schaeffer Theatre.

The �ֲ���ý Dance Festival, an annual summer series of renowned contemporary dance, celebrates its 30th anniversary by highlighting choreographers whose creative development has been nurtured by the festival.

Founded in 1982, the acclaimed festival brings together an international community of contemporary dance choreographers, performers, educators and students in a cooperative community to study, perform and create new work. This season also marks Laura Faure’s 25th anniversary as festival director.

Musicians’ Concert

The Musicians’ Concert is an evening of thoughtful, playful and profound music provided by the musicians who work each year with festival dancers. These extraordinary composers perform a program of original and improvised works that blend musical styles from around the globe.

The evening features multi-instrumentalists Tigger Benford, Glen Fittin, Terrence Karn, Jesse Manno and Shamou, a group whose collective musical repertory spans Africa, Asia and the Middle East; composers and pianists Peter Jones, Carl Landa and John Clark Stiefel; and the exceptional tabla player, Rajesh Bhandari.

Keigwin + Company

Larry Keigwin first attended the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival more than 20 years ago and has participated as a dancer, choreographer, faculty member and as a featured mainstage performer with his own troupe, . Founded in 2003, the group has performed Keigwin’s distinct and electrifying brand of contemporary dance nationally and internationally.

Keigwin’s work is clever, kinetic, theatrical — but unpretentious. The choreography is visually stimulating and ambitious, but accessible thanks to its pop-culture savvy and an engaging unpredictability.

“Keigwin’s mix of kinetic street energy and academic technique is always pleasing,” a New York Times reviewer wrote. “He is adept at creating and then disrupting rapidly shifting spatial patterns, so that the eye is engaged on both the macro and micro levels.”

Highly sought after as a choreographer, Keigwin has recently received commissions from Works & Process at the Guggenheim; The Juilliard School; the New York City Ballet’s Choreographic Institute; the Royal New Zealand Ballet; and the Martha Graham Dance Company, among others.

In 2010, Keigwin was named the Vail International Dance Festival’s first artist in residence, creating and premiering a work with four of ballet’s most prominent stars. Also in 2010, he staged the opening event of Fashion Week: Fashion’s Night Out: The Show was produced by Vogue and featured more than 150 of the industry’s top models.

In 2011, Keigwin choreographed a new musical, Tales of the City, at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, and a new off-Broadway production of Rent.

No prior dance or performance experience is required. The three-week workshop is offered free of charge as part of the festival’s ongoing community outreach effort.

Twelve “enthusiastic” individuals, ages 15 through 19 and 55 and over, will be selected, along with 12 Dance Festival students, to create and perform a new piece, according to Laura Faure, festival director.

Two informational meetings, one for teenagers and the other for seniors, will be held with Bliss on April 2 to encourage anyone interested in participating in the project.

Bliss will meet with elders at Horizons/55 in the Promenade Mall on East Avenue from 10 to 11 a.m. He will show video tapes from past projects, lead creative exercises and speak about past performances.

Bliss will meet with teenagers at United Baptist Church, 250 Main St., from 3:30-4:30 p.m. He will lead a movement workshop and talk about plans for the summer.

The community performance workshop will meet from July 28 through Aug. 15 at the United Baptist Church, Mondays through Fridays, from 2 to 4 p.m. Participants must be available to attend all classes during the three weeks. Interested individuals must complete a project questionnaire, available from the festival office, 161 Wood St., by May 15.

The final dance piece will be performed as part of the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival’s culminating concerts on Aug. 14 and 15 in Schaeffer Theatre.

Bliss, a professional choreographer and teaching artist, has been developing community-based experiences for children, professional artists and older adults from diverse communities for more than 12 years.

The co-author with Susan Perlstein of Elders Share the Art of Generating Community, Bliss was a member of the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange for seven years. His own choreography has been produced in New York, San Diego and Hong Kong.

For more information about the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival’s community performance project, call Laura Faure at 207-786-6381.