Kansas City Dance Festival coming up

Founded in 2013, the Kansas City Dance Festival (KCDF) returns for another season on June 18-25. The festival will feature mainstage and black box performances, three masterclasses and a dance forum.

Co-Artistic Directors Anthony Krutzkamp and Logan Pachciarz, along with General Manager Jill Marlow, all formerly dancers with Kansas City Ballet, wrote in the season announcement, “We have been busy planning more works, finding great dancers and putting together an exciting KCDF Summer 2016. Our goal is to keep the highest quality of dance for 2016, which the dance festival has provided to our audiences for the past three years.”

They added, “Our biggest announcement is that our festival is growing to be weeklong! We can’t wait for you to have the option to partake and learn about dance in more ways than one.”

First up for KCDF 2016 is a free Dance Forum on Saturday, June 18 from 4-6 pm. Krutzkamp and Pachciarz will talk with choreographer Garrett Smith at Quixotic Studio. A reception will follow.

Next, between June 20-22, KCDF will hold masterclasses around the Kansas City community. Teachers include Abigail Sheppard of the Finnish National Ballet and Luzicka Ballet, Garrett Glassman of Milwaukee Ballet and Luzicka Ballet, and James Ihde of Pennsylvania Ballet and the Kansas City Ballet School.

The first performance will be Friday, June 24 at 7:30 pm. The black box event will present The Nexus Project, a two-man group out of Chicago.

Wrapping up the festival will be its mainstage event at Folly Theater on Saturday, June 25 at 7:30 pm. Dancers from various professional companies come together for this mixed program. The line-up includes George Balanchine’s Apollo, Matthew Neenan’s Penumbra, a pas de deux by Ryan Jolicoeur-Nye, Vicente Nebrada’s Lento, an excerpt from The Nexus Project and a world premiere by Garrett Smith.

For more information, visit http://kcdancefestival.com. Tickets are still available for the performances.

Photo by Kay Connelly.