By Steve Sucato

Inlet Dance Theatre’s performances at Cleveland Heights’ Cain Park and Akron’s Heinz Poll Summer Dance Festival last summer gave audiences a preview of the company’s 25th-anniversary season and featured works from its rich repertoire. This summer, now officially celebrating the company’s 25th anniversary, Inlet returns to Cain Park on July 25 and to the Heinz Poll Summer Dance Festival on August 7-8, with repertory programs that reflect the company’s quarter century of dancemaking. 

Founded in 2001 by Founder and Executive Artistic Director Bill Wade, the Cleveland-based contemporary dance company has roots in American modern dance, nontraditional partnering, and elements of dance-theater (à la Pilobolus and MOMIX), making it one of the more aesthetically unique troupes in the region.

A mainstay on the Northeast Ohio dance scene, the company has made a name for itself not only for its engaging performance programs, but for its ongoing educational programs that serve the community and its Event Services tailored performances for special events. Most recently, in their new home at The Pivot Center for Art, Dance and Expression, the company began The Estuary at Inlet Dance Theatre, which has become a dance community hub providing affordable rehearsal and performance space. 

“We are subsidizing artists who cannot afford to rent space to use The Estuary seven days a week,” says Wade. 

In recent years, the company has also developed a national presence by touring the family-friendly production What Do You Do With An Idea? based on Kobi Yamada’s #1 New York Times bestselling children’s picture book of the same name. They will embark on another national tour later this year with their new production based on Yamada’s companion book, What Do You Do With A Problem?

For the two summer productions celebrating the company’s 25th anniversary, deciding which of the company’s many works to include in them came down to a few key factors, says Wade. 

“We are down on the number of company dancers this season, so the works needed to be for five dancers or less, without physically overburdening any of them,” says Wade. “With that in mind, we chose a collection of dance works that represent the company’s past, present, and forecast its future.”

Regarding forecasting the future of Inlet’s repertory, Wade says he has begun experimenting with blending all the company’s disparate stylistic elements into a single whole. His 2024 work, “Mayim,” is an early example of this approach.

Audiences can see “Mayim,” along with a selection of new and older works spanning the company’s history, beginning this Saturday. Here is a look at each of the two productions celebrating Inlet’s 25 years:

CAIN PARK

Inlet’s production at Cain Park on Saturday, July 25 will feature eight works performed by its company dancers, apprentices, and students from Inlet’s annual Summer Dance Intensive.

It will open with 2023’s “Ode to Keith Haring,” choreographed by Wade and the work’s original cast (program order subject to change). Set to Art of Noise’s song “Beat Box,” the work for four dancers was inspired by the whimsy and energy of Haring’s pop art painting “The Dance.”

Next, students of the Summer Dance Intensive will premiere a work by Inlet company dancer Joel K. Linebach that honors the company’s anniversary. Drawing on movement from repertory works over the past 25 years, Linebach will create a new dance piece set to music by composer Steve Reich. Then, the company will perform 2001’s “Memoriate,” choreographed by Wade and the original cast, set to an original score by Ryan Lott (a.k.a. Son Lux) that honors the elderly and those who care for them and is meant to heighten the awareness of their concerns. 

Inlet company members Bird Thurman and Linebach will follow with a performance of the first duet from “Themes of Trust and Care” (2023). Danced to music by Catalan pianist, singer, and experimental musician Marina Herlop, the duet was the first to emerge from months of studio-based physical research, centered on a theme of trust and care as an antidote to the ills of the world today.

A special collaborative performance improvisation for the full company, apprentices, and SDI students rounds out the program’s first half and will feature special appearances by Inlet alumni.

The program’s second half opens with the aforementioned “Mayim,” a work for a trio of dancers set to a soundscape by Joel Negus with recordings of the Chagrin River. Choreographed by Wade and the original cast, explores how light refracts off the surface of water flowing in a river.

A second work created on the Summer Dance Intensive students follows. Choreographed by Inlet Assistant Artistic Director Joshua Brown, the new piece is said to be stylistically the first of his to use movement generated from his own body.

The program will then conclude with Wade’s “Ascension” (2006), set to an original score by Lott. The work centers on the idea that human beings ascend to higher places when relationships are based on trust, balance, and respect.

HEINZ POLL SUMMER DANCE FESTIVAL

As with the Cain Park performance (sans the SDI students), the company will present “Ode to Keith Haring,” “Memoriate,” “First Duet on the Themes of Trust and Care,” the “Collaborative Performance Improvisation,” and “Mayim” for its free performances at the 52ND Heinz Poll Summer Dance Festival on Friday, August 7 and Saturday, August 8. 

Also on the program will be 2014’s “10,” choreographed by Wade, Brown, and Elizabeth Pollert, set to a commissioned score by Sean Ellis Hussey. The duet made in honor of Brown and Pollert’s tenth season with Inlet will be performed by Linebach and Emma McBride in celebration of her tenth season with the company.

Joining “10” will be 2001’s “Equals” choreographed by Wade in collaboration with Percy Foster and Bryan and Ryan Peoples. The work, originally performed by identical twins Bryan and Ryan Peoples, explores the miracle of gestation both literally and metaphorically.

Completing the program will be 2004’s “ImPAIRed,” a work danced by Linebach and dancer Lauren Satnik in blindfolds, inspired by residencies Inlet conducted for visually impaired and blind students at the Cleveland Sight Center (CSC) in 2003 and 2004, and excerpts from 2004’s “Dream of Sleeping,” a work about sleep and sleep-related issues. Both works were choreographed by Wade with original scores by Lott.  

For the 60+-year-old Wade, twenty-five years is merely the beginning for him and Inlet. “I’ve got stuff I want to do. “I am working on a new veteran’s project, I want to create a work based on Yamada’s third book, What Do You Do With A Chance?, and a lot more. For fans of Inlet, that is music to our ears.

Inlet Dance Theatre and students from its Summer Dance Intensive perform at 8 p.m., Saturday, July 25, 2026. Cain Park’s Evans Amphitheater, 14591 Superior Rd, Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Tickets are $7.25 – $29.50 and are available online at cainpark.com/events, by phone at (216) 371-3000, or in person at the Cain Park box office.

Inlet Dance Theatre performs at the Heinz Poll Summer Dance Festival, 8:45 p.m., Friday, August 7 and Saturday, August 8, 2026. Firestone Park, between N. and S. Firestone Blvd., Akron, Ohio. Free Admission. More information at akrondancefestival.org.

For more information on Inlet Dance Theatre, visit inletdance.org