July and August on a college campus can seem peaceful, even sleepy.

But here’s a closer look at what happens when all those deadlines and stop-starts of the school year give way to summer’s true bounty: uninterrupted time for scholars and proteges to research and learn, explore and grow — leaps both intellectual and physical.

From Ann Arbor to West Yorkshire, from Stonington to Boston, and here in Lewiston and Auburn, here’s summer at �ֲ���ý.

Professor of Physics Hong Lin works with intern Max Huang ’18 of Suzhou, China, in her Carnegie Science Hall lab. Lin and her student team investigated characteristics of instabilities in vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Cristopher Thompson '19 of Macon, Ga., poses for a portrait at the Boys and Girls Club of Auburn, where he worked with young people this summer supported by a fellowship from the Harward Center for Community Partnerships. (Josh Kuckens/�ֲ���ý College)

After intentionally skimming the surface of the Androscoggin River, a hot air balloon begins to rise during an early-morning launch of the Great Falls Balloon Festival on Aug. 21. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Ben Lizotte and Monica McCusker listen to Frank Sinatra sing “Autumn in New York,” on the College Store’s new audio setup in 65 Campus Ave. “I didn’t want to scare anybody away with the first song, so I kept it low-key," said Lizotte, a senior audio visual analyst for Information and Library Services. McCusker is the store’s office coordinator. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

Annakay Wright ’17, a women and gender studies major from Brooklyn, N.Y., poses with Assistant Professor of English Victor Mendoza at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she researched the topic “Trans Panic in North Carolina Bathroom Laws,” with funding from the Creating Connections Consortium, colleges and universities seeking to increase faculty diversity in higher education. (Daryl Marshke/University of Michigan for �ֲ���ý College)

Bliss Kohlmyer and Kara Davis appear in the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival’s “Different Voices” concerts. (Andy Mogg)

The �ֲ���ý Dance Festival reprises three popular annual offerings as it nears the end of its 2015 season.

The annual Musicians’ Concert, a global mix of music by the remarkable composers and players who support the work of the dance festival, takes place at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 4, at the Franco Center, 46 Cedar St., Lewiston. Admission is $15 for adults, $10 for seniors and $7 for students.

The Different Voices concerts, showcasing diverse styles and perspectives by visiting choreographers from around the world, take place at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday, Aug. 6 and 7, in Schaeffer Theatre, 329 College St. Admission is $25 for adults, $18 for seniors and $12 for students.

Terrence Karn is one of the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival players taking part in the Aug. 4 Musicians’ Concert. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ���ý College)

The Festival Finale presents student dancers of all ages performing contemporary works by festival performers and faculty. Also representing the festival’s Youth Arts Program, the finale takes place at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 8, in Alumni Gymnasium, 130 Central Ave. Admission is $6, available only in cash sales at the door.

Preceding the finale at 1 p.m. Aug. 8 in Schaeffer Theatre is the annual Young Choreographers / New Works showcase, an informal adjudicated showing of more than 20 new works by talented festival students. Admission is free and audience members are invited to come and go throughout the event.

For information about tickets, please visit the festival website —  — or call the �ֲ���ý box office at 207-786-6161.

The Musicians’ Concert offers a different perspective on creativity at the dance festival. Thoughtful, playful and profound music takes center stage as these extraordinary composers, known for their collaborations with dancers, perform a program of original and improvised works that blend musical styles from around the globe.

The evening features multi-instrumentalists Jesse Manno, Terrence Karn and Shamou, whose collective musical repertory spans Africa, Asia and the Middle East; composer-pianists Peter Jones, Mike Vargas and Carl Landa; electronic music wizard Albert Mathias; and violin prodigy Rob Flax.

Transnational fusion dance artist Donna Mejia performs in “Different Voices.” (Steve Blaerama)

Showcasing diverse styles and perspectives, Different Voices features visiting choreographers from across the U.S. and beyond. This eclectic evening includes surprising and innovative dance, music and media works by:

• Bay Area duo Kathleen Hermesdorf and Albert Mathias;
• transnational fusion artist Donna Mejia;
• New York City choreographer and tap artist David Parker;
  Chicago’s acclaimed jazz choreographer Autumn Eckman;
• the remarkable Finnish movement artist Ima Iduozee;
• emerging artists Scotty Hardwig and Keanu Forest Brady;
• and the stunning Bliss Kohlmyer and Kara Davis.

The Festival Finale is a celebration of the next wave of dance luminaries. Students perform a high-energy evening of new works created by faculty members Robert Moses, Rennie Harris, Autumn Eckman, and Claudia Lavista and Omar Carrum. This culmination of the festival’s three-week intensive training program also showcases an original production by talented local youth, ages 7-16, enrolled in the festival’s Youth Arts Program.

Robert Moses’ Kin. (R.J. Muna)

Robert Moses’ Kin returns to the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival with performances of “NEVABAWARLDAPECE,” a work whose creators include roots musician Corey Harris ’91, at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, July 31 and Aug. 1, 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 �ֲ���ý box office at 207-786-6161.

“NEVABAWARLDAPECE” (“never be a world of peace”) is a full-company work of urgent, pulsing energy that explores critical moments of change in America’s liberation movements, insurrections and revolts. In a world of seemingly endless chaos and confrontation, “NEVABAWARLDAPECE” feels like a plea for a return to core principles.

The work is a collaboration among artistic director Moses; award-winning writer and performer Carl Hancock Rux; Afro-Celtic folk-funk vocalist Laura Love; blues musician, composer and MacArthur Fellow Harris; and lighting and visual designer Elaine Buckholtz.

The company presents a Show & Tell lecture-demonstration at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 28, in Schaeffer. Dance writer Debra Cash offers a pre-performance Inside Dance lecture at 7 p.m. Aug. 1. A talkback with the artists follows both concerts.

Robert Moses’ Kin. (Toni Gauthier)

Also this week, the festival presents Moving in the Moment, an evening of improvisational dance and music by contact improviser Nancy Stark Smith and festival faculty and musicians, at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 29, in Alumni Gym, 130 Central Ave. Admission is free.

Moses’ diverse 11-member company is known for its eclectic movement vocabulary, demanding choreography, ferocious dancing and provocative themes. Moses’ focus on the expressiveness of the human body and his desire to speak with the voices of his African American heritage have resulted in an internationally recognized collection of dances.

Robert Moses’ Kin has premiered more than 70 original works that range from neoclassical ballet to postmodern movement theatre. The company has earned a host of awards including four Bay Area Isadora Duncan Awards (Izzies), as well as grants from such institutions as the National Endowment for the Arts and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

The company has appeared at venues throughout the U.S., including Jacob’s Pillow, the Colorado Dance Festival, Dance Center at Columbia College, University of Texas and New York’s City Center’s Fall for Dance Festival. Learn more:

A powerful singer, skilled and inventive songwriter, Harris has carved out his own niche in the blues. Recipient of an honorary Doctor of Music degree from �ֲ���ý in 2007, he is an intrepid explorer of blues, jazz, reggae, and other genres. .

About the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival

Founded in 1982 at �ֲ���ý College, the �ֲ���ý 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 �ֲ���ý 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.

The great Buckwheat Zydeco performs at �ֲ���ý on July 30.

NOTE: Because of inclement weather predicted for showtime, tonight’s Concert on the Quad at �ֲ���ý will take place in the Gomes Chapel, 275 College St.

The Concerts on the Quad at �ֲ���ý College resumes with the crowd-rousing zydeco artist Buckwheat Zydeco at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, July 30, on the Coram Library porch on �ֲ���ý’ Historic Quad, College Street and Campus Avenue. (The rain site is the nearby Peter J. Gomes Chapel, 275 College St.).

Admission to this family-friendly series is free, and audience members are encouraged to bring picnics and chairs or blankets. For more information, please call 207-753-6953.

Concluding the series at 6:30 p.m. Aug. 13 is the Stephanie Fogg Band.

Widely regarded as the biggest contemporary zydeco artist in the world, accordionist-keyboardist Buckwheat Zydeco has introduced this upbeat blend of blues and traditional Creole music to audiences far away from its birthplace in Lafayette, La.

His energetic style has revitalized zydeco by drawing from mainstream genres like rock and R&B. Zydeco released the first-ever major label zydeco album in 1987, Island Records’ On A Night Like This, and has issued more than two dozen recordings since. Over the course of Zydeco’s career, he has gigged with everyone from Eric Clapton (with whom Zydeco also recorded) and U2 to the Boston Pops.

Stephanie Fogg Band

Singer Stephanie Fogg.

Hailing from Portland, Maine, Fogg is an experienced vocalist and an instructor at the Midcoast School of Music. Growing up listening to jazz and soul artists like Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, and Etta James inspired Fogg’s love of singing from a young age.

Fogg has toured widely throughout New England. The Stephanie Fogg Band’s recent gigs have included performances of Back to Black, the second and final album by the late and lamented Amy Winehouse, in its entirety. Supporting Fogg are guitarists Mike Derosier and Seth Warner, drummer Chris Marro, bassist Duane Edwards, keyboardist Matt Fogg, and saxophonist David Wells.

Delfos Danza Contemporanea. (Martin Gavica)

The leading Mexican dance troupe Delfos Danza Contemporanea makes its New England debut with the compelling evening-length work “When Disguises Are Hung Up” in 2015 �ֲ���ý Dance Festival performances at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, July 24 and 25, in �ֲ���ý College’s 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 �ֲ���ý box office at 207-786-6161.

Delfos co-directors Victor Manuel Ruiz and Claudia Lavista reveal their passion for collaboration and invention in a festival Show & Tell lecture-demonstration at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 21, in Schaeffer Theatre. Dance writer Debra Cash offers a pre-performance Inside Dance lecture at 7 p.m. on July 25. A talkback with the artists follows both concerts.

A work for seven dancers, “Disguises” integrates dance, video, computer animation and music by Mario Lavista, Meredith Monk, Schumann, Sergio Díaz, Bach and Vivaldi into a reflection on appearances, and the loss and rediscovery of the self. Both deeply conceptual and accessible, “Disguises” is one of the most esteemed works in Delfos’ repertory.

Choreographer-dancers Lavista and Ruiz founded Delfos in 1992 as a collective of artists whose creative vision is distinguished by the fluid physicality and poetic narratives within their diverse repertory. Delfos’ work has been presented throughout Latin America as well as Canada, the United States, Europe, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea and Lebanon.

Delfos has won worldwide critical praise; several major awards including the Mexican National Dance Award; and the distinct honor of being the only Mexican company selected to tour extensively in the U.S. with the support of the National Dance Project. Learn more: .

The �ֲ���ý Dance Festival engagement of Delfos Danza Contemporanea is made possible through Southern Exposure: Performing Arts of Latin America, a program of Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation.

About the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival

Founded in 1982 at �ֲ���ý College, the �ֲ���ý 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 �ֲ���ý 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.

The �ֲ���ý 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 �ֲ���ý 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 �ֲ���ý 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 �ֲ���ý 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 �ֲ���ý Dance Festival

Founded in 1982 at �ֲ���ý College, the �ֲ���ý 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 �ֲ���ý 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.

Jazz theater artist Courtney D. Jones is one of the performers in the �ֲ���ý dance Festival’s “DanceNOW” programs July 10-11. (Lynn Lane)

Presenting fresh choreographic voices from a new generation of festival faculty and alumni, the showcase DanceNOW opens the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival’s 2015 performance season.

Performances take place at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, July 10 and 11, at �ֲ���ý College’s air-conditioned Schaeffer Theatre, 329 College St.

Admission is $20 for adults, $15 for seniors, and $12 for students. For information about ordering tickets, please visit the festival website —  — or call the �ֲ���ý box office at 207-786-6161.

In a stylistic cornucopia, the evening comprises new works by post-modernist Karl Rogers’ Red Dirt Dance and Annie Kloppenberg & Co., featuring �ֲ���ý dance professor Rachel Boggia; modern dance dynamos Kellie Ann Lynch and Erika Pujic; jazz theater artist Courtney D. Jones; hip-hop choreographer Shakia Johnson; and astute storyteller Lida Winfield.

Setting the stage for an exciting season, this opener is sure to intrigue and delight. A talkback with the artists follows both concerts.

Rogers, founder of Red Dirt Dance, is a lead dancer with David Dorfman Dance and co-director of �ֲ���ý Dance Festival’s Young Dancers Workshop. His quirky choreography blends dance and theater to create stories of humor and human foibles.

The award-winning Kloppenberg and her dancers are based in New York and Boston, and perform throughout the Northeast. “By punctuating precise traffic patterns with minute peculiarities, Kloppenberg gives the dance its meaning,” wrote the Boston Globe’s Thea Singer: “Rigor can order chaos if you’re vigilant enough.”

Karl Rogers brings his company red Dirt Dance to the 2015 �ֲ���ý Dance Festival.

Pujic was a founding member and rehearsal director for Battleworks Dance Company. A sought-after teacher, she is on faculty at the Ailey School, Marymount Manhattan College, and Skidmore College. Pujic, who has thrilled �ֲ���ý Dance Festival audiences as a performer with Battleworks, joins the festival’s Young Dancers Workshop faculty this summer.

Kellie Ann Lynch performs with Doug Elkins Choreography, Etc., and Adele Myers and Dancers. She co-founded Elm City Dance Collective, which provides a platform for experiential dance development in New Haven, Conn. An enthralling performer, Kellie has participated in the �ֲ���ý Dance Festival as a student, counselor, and performer with Adele Myers.

Courtney D. Jones, one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” in 2012, is a dancer, actress, and teacher. She performed in Broadway’s First National Tour of Wicked in 2009 and performs frequently with the Houston Grand Opera, Houston Metropolitan Dance Company, and Hope Stone, Inc. She has been a �ֲ���ý Dance Festival counselor and faculty member.

Shakia Johnson, a certified teacher with the National Dance Institute, has choreographed and directed more than 40 hip hop, modern, African, and lyrical works, including a work for the Celtics/NBA half-time show. A phenomenal creator and performer, Shakia has been a �ֲ���ý Dance Festival student, emerging choreographer, and guest teacher.

Lida Winfield is a dancer, choreographer, spoken-word and teaching artist whose work addresses issues of education, disability, access, and the power of the arts. Lida, who wowed audiences last summer as one of the festival’s emerging choreographers, returns with her heart-wrenching and hilarious autobiographical dance stories.

The great Buckwheat Zydeco performs at �ֲ���ý on July 30.

Dom Flemons, former Carolina Chocolate Drop;  crowd-rousing zydeco artist Buckwheat Zydeco; and the Maine soul and jazz band led by Stephanie Fogg are featured in this summer’s Concerts on the Quad at �ֲ���ý College.

The 2015 series comprises outdoor shows at 6:30 p.m. on three Thursdays: July 16, Flemons; July 30, Zydeco; and Aug. 13, Fogg.

The concerts are held on the Coram Library porch on the college’s Historic Quad, at College Street and Campus Avenue (rain site is the nearby Peter J. Gomes Chapel, 275 College St.).

Admission to this family-friendly series is free, and audience members are encouraged to bring picnics and chairs or blankets. For more information, please call 207-753-6953.

Dom Flemons

Flemons draws deeply from the rich American folk tradition — ragtime, early blues, Southern folk, spiritual, string, and jug band music — and revives it for contemporary audiences. His work has been praised for its gritty, intimate style, which, as The Guardian writes, “sounds as if he’s sitting on the front porch enjoying himself.”

Roots musician Dom Flemons opens �ֲ���ý’ Concerts on the Quad on July 16.

Flemons self-released his first solo recording, Prospect Hill, last summer. “Flemons’ talents are best-suited to intimate settings,” wrote Mark Segal Kemp in a review of the CD in Acoustic Guitar magazine, “where he can sit with his banjo, guitar, and percussion, jam a little, tell stories and talk about the rich history of African-American folk traditions.”

A co-founder of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, in 2005, Flemons started his solo career in 2013.

Buckwheat Zydeco

Widely regarded as the biggest contemporary zydeco artist in the world, accordionist-keyboardist Buckwheat Zydeco has introduced this upbeat blend of blues and traditional Creole music to audiences far away from its birthplace in Lafayette, La.

His energetic style has revitalized zydeco by drawing from mainstream genres like rock and R&B. Zydeco released the first-ever major label zydeco album in 1987, Island Records’ On A Night Like This, and has issued more than two dozen recordings since. Over the course of Zydeco’s career, he has gigged with everyone from Eric Clapton (with whom Zydeco also recorded) and U2 to the Boston Pops.

Stephanie Fogg Band

Singer Stephanie Fogg.

Hailing from Portland, Maine, Fogg is an experienced vocalist and an instructor at the Midcoast School of Music. Growing up listening to jazz and soul artists like Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, and Etta James inspired Fogg’s love of singing from a young age.

Fogg has toured widely throughout New England. The Stephanie Fogg Band’s recent gigs have included performances of Back to Black, the second and final album by the late and lamented Amy Winehouse, in its entirety. Supporting Fogg are guitarists Mike Derosier and Seth Warner, drummer Chris Marro, bassist Duane Edwards, keyboardist Matt Fogg, and saxophonist David Wells.

The fun begins during the 2014 Clean Sweep “garage sale” at �ֲ���ý. (Alexander Hulse ’15/�ֲ���ý College)

A “garage sale” on a massive scale that benefits the environment, community organizations and countless satisfied shoppers, �ֲ���ý College presents its 15th annual Clean Sweep at 8 a.m. Saturday, June 20, at the Underhill Arena, 145 Russell St.

As students pack up to leave �ֲ���ý at the end of the school year, they donate to Clean Sweep all kinds of possessions still in good working order — clothing, electronics and toys, household goods and small furnishings, bikes and books, sporting goods and more. Faculty, staff and the college itself also donate items.

It’s a win-win-win-win situation: Shoppers find treasures at bargain prices, still-usable goods are kept out of the waste stream and the proceeds go to local nonprofits, who in turn supply volunteers to staff the sale.

To learn more, please call 207-786-6464.

�ֲ���ý is one of a number of colleges and universities nationwide that hold such sales. Last year’s event at �ֲ���ý raised nearly $22,000, which was divided among 12 local nonprofit organizations.

The volunteers collect, organize and price items, and help clean up afterward. Located in Lewiston except as indicated, the nonprofits taking part this year are:

The Caleb Group (River Valley Village); Catholic Charities of Maine’s Seek Elderly Alone, Renew Courage and Hope (SEARCH) Program; Maine Franco-American Genealogy Society of Auburn-Lewiston, located in Auburn; the Life Center at John F. Murphy Homes, Auburn; the Lots to Gardens program at St. Mary’s Nutrition Center; the Share Center, Auburn; TriCounty Mental Health Services and its Social Learning Center; and the Trinity Jubilee Center.