By Armita Mirkarimi, Staff Writer
The Junction Dance Festival (TJDF) returns this month for its fifth year, bringing nine days of performances, free community workshops, and regional choreographers to venues in White River Junction, Norwich, Thetford, and Lebanon, N.H. The festival runs July 10-19 and closes with a special by-donation performance at Lyman Point Park, featuring Upper Valley native and dancer, Ruth Childs.
Variety is the festival’s signature. Caitlin Morgan, a contemporary dancer who first performed a solo at TJDF in 2022, described past lineups that have included Bharatanatyam, tap, ballet, and hip-hop. “It’s kind of like a buffet of dance,” she said. This year, Morgan is choreographing a group piece for five dancers, with support from a Vermont Dance Alliance microgrant. She also pointed to the unusual shape of the Briggs Opera House stage, which juts out toward the audience. “It doesn’t really feel like you’re super separated from the audience,” she said. “You’re immersed in them as well.”
At the 2024 Junction Dance Festival, Caitlin Morgan danced a contemporary solo. She returns this year with a group piece for five dancers, choreographed with support from a Vermont Dance Alliance microgrant. Kay McCabe and Mathieu Deneen Photo
The timing of the festival this year carries weight; Several dance studios in the Upper Valley have closed in recent years, most recently the Lebanon Ballet School, which TJDF executive director and board president Calvin Walker said is closing at the end of June. “Over the last few years, the Upper Valley has lost some important dance spaces,” Walker told the Standard. “That changes the landscape for everyone involved in dance. Part of TJDF’s role now is to help close that gap by creating more opportunities for people to experience dance, participate in it, and see professional work happening right here in their own community.”
That mission shows up in two new additions to this year’s schedule. On July 11, the festival hosts its first Norwich Community Dance Day, with free workshops and an outdoor performance of “SEASONS: Summer” by Avant Vermont. The next day brings a Thetford Community Dance Day at the New Suns Community Center, a new festival partner. The festival’s choreo lab program also awarded two $500 residency stipends this year to help emerging artists develop new work. The support, Walker noted, has given younger dancers “that first leg in that first big performance at a festival.”
Calvin Walker, who performed a breaking and contemporary fusion piece at the 2023 Junction Dance Festival, is now the festival’s Executive Director and Board President. Kay McCabe and Mathieu Deneen Photo
Accessibility runs through the rest of the schedule, too. The free community days include a sign language dance workshop taught by a disabled dancer who has also advised the festival on broader accessibility, as well as offerings such as dance movement therapy, traditional Indian dance, and adult breaking. “You don’t have to be a dancer to be involved with a dance festival,” Walker said. “You can literally just show up at any of the free workshops that are on our schedule.”
Walker took over as executive director last year, after founder Elizabeth Carrillo stepped back to retire. He says he came to the role by way of the stage himself. Growing up breakdancing in Vermont with no formal training, Walker picked up the breakdancing style from friends and initially performed at TJDF in 2023 before going through its choreo lab residency and joining the board.
Behind the scenes, Chloe Schafer has spent three years keeping that machinery running as the festival’s production and administrative assistant, a role she stepped into after doing the choreo lab residency herself in 2023. This year, the festival received nearly 40 applications for nine or 10 performance slots in the Main Showcase, a record, she said. She credited some of that growth to Walker’s arrival.
“His background is in hip-hop and breaking, whereas previously most people on the board were in more of a ballet world or modern world,” Schafer said. “So the infusion of multiple styles of dance and dance experiences has been great.”
Michael Dascomb, a tap dance artist who discovered the festival on Instagram and performed there for the first time last year, will return this summer to teach a beginner-and-intermediate tap workshop on rhythm and syncopation and to perform a solo built around storytelling. Dascomb grew up dancing in his mother’s studio and took inspiration from artist Derek Grant’s Zoom improvisation sessions to shape his artistry.
“It’s very homey,” he said of the festival. “It doesn’t feel like you’re an audience sitting back watching things happen on a stage.”
The festival’s warm welcome also surprised Ann Bosse, who moved to Vermont in 2022, expecting to leave professional dance behind. After years of performing following her training at Skidmore College, she left New York, Denver, and Baltimore behind for more space and quiet. Instead, she found “this incredible dance scene” waiting in Vermont, and will perform this year with the dance company she co-founded with a neighbor she met after settling in the state. Bosse choreographed the piece that the group is presenting, and five company members will perform it together. Bosse values the free workshops at the festival, bringing together people who have never taken a dance class with professionals in the same room. “That really welcoming community vibe,” she said. “I just love it.”
The Main Showcase takes place July 18 at the Briggs Opera House, with performances at 2 and 7 p.m. featuring dance artists and choreographers from across New England. The festival closes July 19 with “Delicate People,” a work by choreographer and dancer Ruth Childs and Cecile Bouffard. Childs, who grew up in the Upper Valley and is now based in Switzerland, has been reviewed by The New York Times. Walker called, bringing her home to perform “the crown jewel of the festival.”
“It’s been really exciting for us,” Walker said. “We can’t wait to present it to people.”
The Junction Dance Festival runs July 10-19 at venues in White River Junction, Norwich, Thetford, and Lebanon, N.H. Most workshops and community events are free or by donation; Main Showcase tickets are $20-$25. More information, including the full schedule, is available at thejunctiondancefestival.org.