Summer Feats Afoot

Pilobolus: Making six equal two. Photo: John Kane

The American Dance Festival celebrates its seventy-first season June 10 through July 24, featuring forty dances by seventeen dance companies; eleven are performing at ADF for the first time. The ADF, founded in Bennington, Vermont, in 1934, took up summer residence at Duke in 1978.

Events include ten world premieres, three U.S. premieres, three special ADF productions, and two new performance series. Eight of the ten world premieres were commissioned by ADF through the Doris Duke Awards for New Work, made possible by a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

On June 27, Eiko & Koma were presented with the 2004 Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award honoring choreographers for lifetime achievement in modern dance. The pair's first performance in the U.S. was in 1976. Their ADF debut, "Beam," was performed in 1983.