PS21 Summer Season
June 5-September 18 at the PS21 Center for Contemporary Performance in Chatham
PS21’s summer dance programming once again leans toward work that dissolves the boundary between choreography, theater, music, and landscape. Australian contemporary circus company Circa brings “Eternity” to Lumberyard in Catskill in June, pairing astonishing physical feats with the austere spiritual music of Arvo Part (June 5-6). Later that month, Brooklyn-born, Switzerland-based choreographer Jeremy Nedd arrives with two works examining the politics and social histories embedded in movement itself—from viral hip-hop gestures to vernacular dance traditions and 1970s social dance culture (“from rock to rock… aka how magnolia was taken for granite,” (June 26-27); “slidin’ thru,” (June 27-28). September brings “Dive Barn,” choreographer Sayer Mansfield’s community-centered evening of dance and live music staged in PS21’s pastoral Dance Barn, where emerging local performers share the stage with professionals in an atmosphere closer to a gathering than a formal production (September 6). The season closes with Greek choreographer Lenio Kaklea’s “The Birds,” an ecology-inflected contemporary dance work exploring collective behavior, migration, and survival through movement (September 18-19).
Soledad Barrio and Noche Flamenca present “Agua Fresca”
June 7 at The Local in Saugerties
Direct from Spain, internationally acclaimed flamenco company Noche Flamenca brings its newest work, “Agua Fresca,” to The Local on June 7 for a rare Hudson Valley appearance. Led by Bessie Award-winning dancer Soledad Barrio, the company has spent more than three decades pushing flamenco beyond folkloric cliché into something raw, intimate, and emotionally volcanic. The performance features dancers, singers, guitarists, and percussionists in close quarters, turning the Saugerties arts space into something closer to a Madrid tablao than a conventional theater. The evening performance sold out quickly enough that a second matinee was added—a telling sign of the Hudson Valley’s growing appetite for adventurous international performance.
Tempo Summer Dance Series
June 12-26 at Tempo in Kingston
Housed in a renovated former church on the Rondout waterfront, Tempo Performing Arts Center has quickly established itself as a community-oriented music and dance space, blending concerts, classes, workshops, and social dancing under one roof. Tempo’s summer dance events invite audiences onto the floor rather than into theater seats. This season’s lineup ranges from Garifuna punta rhythms to country swing, Cajun two-step, Lindy hop, and old-time social dancing. Belize’s The Garifuna Collective brings its Afro-Indigenous grooves alongside Brooklyn-based percussion group Pulso de Barro (June 12), while singer-songwriter Miss Tess hosts a country swing night geared toward dancers of all levels (June 14). The Down County Jump Festival turns the venue into a full-day celebration of vernacular dance traditions (June 20), and Ashokan Western & Swing channels the communal spirit of classic Catskills dance halls (June 26).
Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival
June 24-August 30 at Jacob’s Pillow in Beckett, Massachusetts
For nearly a century, Jacob’s Pillow has functioned as both summer camp for dance obsessives and one of the most important incubators for movement in America. The Berkshires institution returns for its 94th season with a full 10-week festival spanning three stages and a sprawling campus that blurs the line between performance venue, creative laboratory, and dance pilgrimage site. This summer’s lineup ranges from international debuts to legacy companies, with highlights including San Francisco Ballet’s first Pillow appearance in 70 years (August 5-9), the Martha Graham Dance Company’s centennial celebration (August 12-16), and performances by Ballet Hispanico (August 19-23), Hubbard Street Dance Chicago (August 26-30), and A.I.M. by Kyle Abraham (July 15-19). Beyond the marquee productions, the festival’s daily classes, talks, archives, and outdoor performances reinforce what has long made Jacob’s Pillow singular: dance here isn’t treated as elite spectacle but as a living, communal art form woven into the rhythms of summer life.
RAWdance CONCEPT Series
June 26-27 at the Senate Garage in Kingston
Founded in San Francisco in 2004, RAWdance has steadily built a Hudson Valley following through its CONCEPT Series, an intimate contemporary dance salon staged at Kingston’s Senate Garage (June 26-27). Equal parts performance, experiment, and community gathering, the event trades theatrical polish for immediacy, inviting audiences into the creative process itself. Five Hudson Valley choreographers share works-in-progress alongside more fully realized repertory pieces, with the industrial-chic garage transformed into something closer to an oversized living room than a formal theater. Co-artistic directors Wendy Rein and Ryan T. Smith emcee the evening with an intentionally low-key, conversational energy—serving popcorn and snacks between performances while demystifying contemporary dance for newcomers. What distinguishes the series is its emphasis on accessibility without diluting artistic ambition: challenging work is presented without institutional stiffness or academic framing.
This article appears in June 2026.
