Bates Dance Festival

Bates Dance Festival

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The Bates Dance Festival, a 6 week summer program offers training, commissioning and performances on

Bates Dance Festival is an international community of choreographers, dancers, educators and students learning, creating and performing together.

05/28/2026

Tickets for the 2026 Performance Series officially go on sale June 1st!

From breathtaking world-class talent to groundbreaking new voices, we have curated a lineup for this season that we are incredibly proud of—and we know you’re going to love it. There is nothing quite like the energy of live performance, and we can’t wait to share these unforgettable nights with you.

Mark your calendars for June 1st.
Head to the link in our bio to learn more and get ready for June 1st!

05/16/2026

Part lecture, part ritual, and entirely urgent: For All Your Life is Leslie Cuyjet’s deep dive into the mechanism of life insurance as a tool for examining Black life and death. Cuyjet deconstructs the industry’s origins in the transatlantic slave trade, transforming a business seminar into a visceral investigation of human worth. It is an invitation to witness how we react to loss and a provocation to see the “value” of a life through a lens beyond the economic.

Leslie Cuyjet
For All Your Life
July 24
Schaeffer Theatre

Tickets on sale June 1st
Adult: $40
Student/Senior/Educator: $20
A limited number of $5 tickets will be available to anyone while supplies last!

Link in bio to learn more about Leslie and the rest of the 2026 Performance Series line-up!

02/07/2026

Train with artists who are actively shaping the dance community. Philly Train + Create faculty bring real practice, real process, and real rigor into the room. Come be part of it.
Miles Yeung: Contemporary Forms
This class begins with a warm-up that includes a combination of structured movement exercises and improvisational tasks, promoting stability, mobility, and dynamism. Class will then quickly move into phrase work that challenges dancers to engage with weight, tone, texture, musicality, and form. This class is based on Miles’s experience in contemporary, modern, and post-modern companies and is designed to provide a rigorous practice where dancers can bring their own histories into the space and multiply their potentiality.

Link in bio to reserve your spot for Philly Train + Create!

Photos from Bates Dance Festival's post 01/25/2026

WHAT IS YAP? | The Youth Arts Program (YAP) brings Maine youth ages 7–17 together for an intensive, joy-filled experience in the arts—learning directly from gifted, world-class educators. This full-day (9am–4:45pm), non-residential program invites young artists to move, make, and imagine across a wide range of forms: modern, ballet, hip hop, social dance, yoga, global music traditions, theater, storytelling, poetry, writing, and visual arts.

YAP is a place to explore, express, and connect—where the arts become a powerful way to engage the world and each other.
Call to Action: Applications open on Feb 16th.

01/24/2026

SHHH… here’s a sneak peek 👀

Varvara draws inspiration from Russian Constructivism, questioning the body as machine versus the body as boundless, unruly expression. Choreographer Jenna Riegel brings this tension to life through movement rooted in history, art, and resistance.

📍 Schaeffer Theatre
🗓️ Saturday, January 24 | 7:30PM

✨ Show week is here.
🎟️ Tickets on sale now — don’t miss it.

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Telephone

Address


Pettigrew Hall, 305 College Street
Lewiston, ME
04240

Opening Hours

10am - 4pm