A monthly digest of select dance news and performance impressions, primarily from the regions I cover in Ohio, and parts of Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania.

By Steve Sucato

[NEWS AND NOTES]

Michigan Arts Funding is at Risk — We Need Your Voice
The Michigan House of Representatives has passed a budget that eliminates all arts and cultural funding. This isn’t just about numbers on a budget line. It’s about whether Michigan continues to have access to world-class dance, free community performances, apprenticeships for young artists, and cultural opportunities that inspire and connect us. If this funding disappears, so do many of these experiences. But there is still hope. The budget must still pass the Senate and be signed by Governor Whitmer. That means there is still time to make a difference. Here’s how you can help right now: Contact Governor Gretchen Whitmer and urge her to protect and restore arts funding via this form: Governor’s Office Contact Form. Even if you don’t live in Michigan, please take a moment to raise your voice. If one state legislature gets away with this, others will likely follow suit. Together, we can send a clear message that the arts matter. <<

The Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF) awarded Akron-based dancer/choreographer Dominic Moore-Dunson its 2025 Lloyd Richards New Futures Resident Artist. Named for the legendary leader of the American theatre and awarded to mid-career directors or choreographers, SDCF’s Lloyd Richards New Futures Residency is a year-long residency that helps increase access to institutional leadership and supports artists who are illuminating Black cultural experiences on stage. Click here to read my full article detailing the residency. <<

Tulsa Ballet appointed Stacey Jenkins as its New Executive Director. With more than two decades of service and leadership within the organization, Jenkins steps into this role as a natural next chapter in her longstanding dedication to Tulsa Ballet. “Stacey is the embodiment of Tulsa Ballet’s culture of excellence,” said Artistic Director Marcello Angelini. “Her deep institutional knowledge, combined with her proven leadership, strategic thinking, and collaborative spirit, makes her the perfect person to lead our administrative operations into the future.” <<

Check out (and join) my Ohio Facebook groups, Arts Air NE Ohio – Dance Community Hub and Arts Air Dance Ohio, for postings on events, auditions, classes, and more.

[PERFORMANCE IMPRESSIONS]

The Movement Project presented its 16th annual Summer Works production on August 2, 2025, for the first time at The University of Akron’s Sandefur Theatre. The Cleveland-based modern/contemporary dance company showcased a mix of new and old works from the company’s repertory, along with two pieces created in collaboration with the student dancers attending the TMP’s Summer Intensive. Also on the program was a special appearance by Cleveland’s Ajayi Dance.

The program began with the premiere of TMP company dancer Madison Burris’s “Contained Chaos.” Said to explore the internal tension between control and abandon, Burris’s trio was abstract in that interpretation and at times lacked cohesion. Set to music by Michael Wall, the work showed glimmers of Burris’s budding choreographic talent and featured a compelling performance by dancer Robyn Noelani.

Of the program’s remaining six works, three stood out, including Ajayi Dance’s “AGAIN and AGAIN and.” The powerful dance-theater piece, themed on injustice, was the best I have seen from choreographer Melissa Ajayi.  It featured a gripping performance by dancer Teagan Reed as an oppressed individual whose pain and suffering is witnessed by Ajayi, an onlooker who chose to do nothing to stop Reed’s abuse. Ajayi is then haunted by her inaction, a la Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth, unconsciously wringing her hands in an “Out, damned spot!” moment.

Ajayi’s choreography shone best in the work’s middle section, with the cast of eleven performers dancing in unison to dreamy music. Their bodies drifted and swayed about the stage in fluid, rhythmic movements. “AGAIN and AGAIN and,” ended with the dancers vocalizing lyrics from folk duo MaMuse’s song “We Shall Be Known,” that morphed into a well-intentioned “Kumbaya moment” with the audience.

The Movement Project’s “Ephemeral Systems” and “Live Wire” were the other standouts. Benefitting from a 2019 collaboration with NYC-based choreographer Pam Tanowitz, TMP Artistic Director and co-founder Megan L. Gargano, and co-choreographers Liz Conway and Elyse Morckel appeared to channel Tanowitz’s Merce Cunningham-influenced choreographic style in creating “Ephemeral Systems.”

Arguably, TMP’s best work to date, the piece’s clean, geometric formations and lines mesmerized. Beautifully danced by Burris, Conway, Morckel, and Emmaline Devore, the only criticism of the work is that it continues on a bit too long, to the point of becoming monotonous. 

Rounding out the overall satisfying program was Gargano’s “Live Wire” (2016), set to music by Panamanian–American jazz drummer Billy Cobham. The work, performed by TMP company dancers and students from the Summer Intensive, paired formulaic modern dance movement vocabulary in reaction to Cobham’s brilliant and vibrant drum solos. <<

Popular performance ensemble Pilobolus returned to Akron, Ohio, to close out the 2025 Heinz Poll Summer Dance Festival on August 2, with an evening performance at Lock 3’s Maynard Performance Pavilion. 

A leg on their Different Worlds tour, the program featured both newer and older works from their repertoire, beginning with “Particle Zoo,” a men’s quartet about being an outsider to a group. Set to a mix of musical genres, the work tapped into the troupe’s signature bold and acrobatic movement style, with dancers diving over one another onto the stage floor, and then two of the dancers being lifted overhead by two others and spun rapidly in a circle, resembling helicopter blades. 

Next, the female duet “Bloodlines” explored the troupe’s other signature movement style, nontraditional partnering, which consists of weight-sharing movement sequences and creative lever-like lifts. 

After performances of Pilobolus’ newest work, the aviation-themed fantasy, “Flight” (2025), and one of its oldest, the Monty Python-like “Walklyndon,” the highly entertaining program closed with perhaps its best offering, “Lamentation Variations.” 

The work was created in response to a 1940s film of Martha Graham performing her iconic solo work “Lamentation,” in which, seated on a bench, Graham, costumed in a tube-like costume of stretch fabric, morphed her physical appearance into looking like a being in a constant state of physical transformation. Her outward appearance a manifestation of a controlling inner anguish. 

Pilobolus transformed Graham’s solo into a stunning group work, which began with portions of the 1940s film of Graham being projected across the dancers’ bodies. Also, in tube-like costumes, Pilobolus’ dancers looked more like deep-sea creatures, who swayed and gyrated in place.

Halfway through the work, the dancers shed their body condom costumes and began a sequence of bending and stretching movements set to a hauntingly beautiful and surreal rendition of an old recording of the song “By the Light of the Silv’ry Moon.”

The wonderfully crafted and powerfully visual work concluded with a dancer being lifted high into the air by the others, suggesting Graham ascending into the heavens. <<

[PERFORMANCES TO CHECK OUT IN SEPTEMBER]

Join Abrepaso Flamenco for its 5th annual flamenco flashmob at Edgewater Beach, September 6, 2025. It’s easy to learn the choreography in person or online, and beginners through advanced students are welcome. The music we selected this year is a beautiful song titled Al Alba by Alba Musik. Meet at the swings by the Edgewater Beach House (lower Edgewater) at 4:30 p.m. Shortly thereafter, we’ll break out into the choreography on the cement stage in front of the beach house. Afterwards, join us for a potluck picnic. Please bring a dish to share! Wear your everyday clothes with a touch of flamenco flair – polka dots, flowers, and bright colors. Free. Edgewater Beach House, 7600 Cleveland Memorial Shoreway, Cleveland.

SOLE Defined presents the world premiere of Zaz: The Big Easy, an immersive sensory performance that shifts traditional viewing practices beyond just sight and sound. The performers embody the oral histories and recorded experiences of survivors of Hurricane Katrina. They perform in tap shoes, hard-soled shoes, gumboots, and barefoot, creating a rhythmic score that supports the narration woven into the performance. These stories are conveyed through speaking, singing, rapping, and projections, creating a unique experience that transports the audience to New Orleans and breaks down the boundaries of the fourth wall. Conceived by Ryan K. Johnson, an acclaimed 2024 Guggenheim Choreography Fellow. September 4, 5 & 7, 2025 at 7 p.m. Wexner Center for the Arts, 1871 N High St., Columbus, OH. Tickets are $25-$41 and are available at wexarts.org/performing-arts/sole-defined <<

Signaling the kick-off to the new dance season in Northeast Ohio, this year’s Playhouse Square Dance Showcase, presented by Terry & Sheldon Adelman, includes a diverse range of dance styles, from contemporary ballet to traditional Tahitian dance. Featured companies include: Christina Lindhout & Artists, Cleveland Ballet, Cleveland Dance Project Company, Dancing Wheels Company, Ohio Contemporary Ballet, Pacific Paradise Entertainment, Shri Kalaa Mandir, Tap Artistry Project, ELEVĀTED, SOĀR, and a special guest appearance. September 5, 2025, at 7 p.m., Playhouse Square’s KeyBank State Theater, 1519 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, OH. Admission is FREE, but tickets are required. Limit 4 tickets per person. Visit: https://tickets.playhousesquare.org/online/seatSelect.asp <<

Cincinnati Ballet opens its 2025-26 season with the Kaplan New Works Series. Experience four world premiere commissions from choreographers Caroline Dahm, Yoshihisa Arai, Andonis Foniadakis, and Andrea Giselle Schermoly. September 12–20, 2025, Jarson-Kaplan Theater at the Aronoff Center, 650 Walnut Street, Cincinnati, OH. Tickets are $71-$96, and available at cballet.org/performances/2025-the-kaplan-new-works-series  <<

Grand Rapids Ballet, Michigan’s only professional classical ballet company, returns to Great Lakes Center for the Arts with a vibrant mixed repertoire program showcasing a diversity of styles and the extraordinary range of their dancers. In addition to works by master choreographer Lar Lubovitch, artistic director James Sofranko, and dance world sensation Jennifer Archibald, the program will feature Trey McIntyre’s Be Here Now—a celebration of the music and cultural revolution of the 1960s. September 14, 2025, at 3 p.m. Great Lakes Center for the Arts, 800 Bay Harbor Drive, Petoskey, MI. Tickets are $52-$102 and available at greatlakescfa.org/events/detail/grand-rapids-ballet-25 <<

Pittsburgh’s Texture Contemporary Ballet presents In This Moment, the second production of its 15th season. Dance is an art form rooted in the present—each movement is fleeting, each breath is unique. With In This Moment, Texture’s choreographers and dancers embrace this ephemeral nature, inviting audiences to reflect on the richness of the here and now. September 19–21, 2025, New Hazlett Theater, 6 Allegheny Square East, Pittsburgh, PA. Tickets are $25-$40 and available at  newhazletttheater.org/events/in-this-moment <<

Kicking off the Pittsburgh Dance Council’s new season, French contemporary and urban dance troupe Compagnie Hervé KOUBI will present Sol Invictus. Named after the “invincible sun” deity, the work upholds love as the guarantor of peace, that despite fracture, communion emerges as humanity’s saving grace. The music score includes a composition by Swedish composer Mikael Karlsson, with excerpts by Steve Reich and digital composer Maxime Bodson. “I want to talk about light, solidarity, and those bonds that unite us,” says Koubi. “Here, the sun and the dance will emerge victorious.” September 20, 2025, at 7:30 p.m. Byham Theater, 101 6th St, Pittsburgh, PA.  Tickets are $23-$94.30 and available at trustarts.org/production/101594/compagnie-herve-koubi#get-tickets <<

The Cleveland Museum of Art and Cleveland Ballet present a special performance coinciding with the “In Vino Veritas (In Wine, Truth)” exhibition on Friday, September 26, 2025, at the museum’s Gartner Auditorium. While the exhibition “In Vino Veritas (In Wine, Truth)” celebrates the presence and meaning of wine in prints, drawings, textiles, and objects, Cleveland Ballet interprets the exhibition’s subject through movement. Enjoy the celebration of joyful revelry with performances of the impressive “Walpurgisnacht,” a collection of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s dances for piano and violin titled “Picnic,” and the lively and energetic “Dance of the Toreadors” from the ballet Don Quixote. 11150 East Blvd, Cleveland, OH. Tickets start at $35 for non-members or $32 for Cleveland Museum of Art Members. For tickets, visit cleveballet.org/cma  <<

Celebrated dance-theater artist David Roussève/REALITY presents the world premiere of Becoming Daddy AF, his first full-length solo in over 20 years. This intimate performance is a powerful meditation on life’s purpose, blending 600 years of ancestral genealogy, from France, Portugal, Germany, Mali, Senegal, Haiti, and Cuba, with Roussève’s journey living with HIV and the profound loss of his husband of 26 years. Revisiting 35 years of dance-making, Roussève explores what “virtuosity” means for a 64-year-old body. Becoming Daddy AF is a moving portrait of a queer African American man defying death while struggling to embrace the fullness of life, an extraordinary fusion of personal storytelling, choreography, and emotional resonance. September 26 & 27, 2025 at 7:30 p.m. Kelly Strayhorn Theater, 5941 Penn Ave., Pittsburgh, PA. Tickets are $20-$35 and available at kellystrayhorntheater.my.salesforce-sites.com/ticket/#/events/a0SVO000003UPaL2AW  <<

Canton Ballet and Ballet Excel come together for One Stage: Two Legacies, a joint ballet performance to celebrate anniversary milestones for each of the pre-professional troupes. Canton Ballet is celebrating its 60th anniversary season, while Ballet Excel marks its 50th anniversary. Included on the mixed repertory program is a new creation by former second soloist at Semperoper Ballett, Zarina Stahnkeus, inspired by the Canton Museum of Art’s groundbreaking “Shattered Glass: The Women Who Elevated American Art” exhibit. September 28, 2025, at 4:30 p.m., Gervasi Vineyard Pavilion, 1700 55th Street NE, Canton, OH. General Admission tickets are $35 and available at my.cheddarup.com/c/cantonballet-balletexcel-gervasi-performance-tickets/barriers/visitor-report  <<