Bates Dance Festival presents new dances, films by Sean Curran and Victoria Mark

The Bates Dance Festival presents two of America’s most eloquent contemporary dance artists who will share the stage for an evening of imaginative and emotionally rich choreography and film Aug. 12 at 8 p.m in Schaeffer Theatre on the Bates College campus.

Tickets are $14/$8 (students and seniors) and may be purchased by calling 207-786-6161. A post-performance talk with the artists will take place immediately following the concert.

Choreographer and filmmaker Victoria Marks has been creating dance for stage and film and in communities from London to Los Angeles that “reveals the human being in the dancer and the dancer within the ordinary person,” according to The Village Voice. Marks portrays Lot’s wife in “My First Solo,” revealing her funny brand of feminism and exhibitionism.

The evening also will feature two short award-winning films directed by Margaret Williams and choreographed by Marks. “Outside In,” an exhilarating jaunt for the gifted dancers of the Britain’s multi-abled CandoCo Dance Company, proves that people in wheelchairs can be thoroughly unbound. “Mothers and Daughters” eloquently portrays the intimacies of families of women.

Seàn Curran, first made his mark on the international dance world as a principal dancer with the Bill T.Jones/Arnie Zane Company. A featured cast member of the Off-Broadway hit “STOMP,” Curran has won consistent praise for his own intelligent and engaging works. Since striking out on his own, Curran has created a gifted company whose recent run at New York’s Joyce Theater received rave reviews. For this performance Curran and members of his company present “That Place, Those People,” a quartet set to the piano music of Leos Janacek; Curran’s solo “Real Boy,” a collaboration with visual designer Douglas Rosenberg; “Enough is Too Much,” a trio set to a percussion score by Bosho; and “Hegel’s Vacation,” a surrealist’s version of “Singing in the Rain,” created for the exceptional dancer Heather Waldon.

In addition to its critically acclaimed mainstage performance series of concerts, the festival offers two intensive training programs, including one for adults and one for younger dancers. For more information, or to request a brochure, call the Bates Dance Festival at 207-786-6381.

The Bates Dance Festival receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New England Foundation for the Arts, the Maine Arts Commission, the OnSite Performance Network, the Surdna Foundation, Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation, Sequoia Foundation, LEF Foundation, Tom’s of Maine, Bingham Betterment Fund, Shapiro Family Foundation, Harkness Foundations for Dance, Capezio Ballet Makers Dance Foundation, and numerous corporate sponsors in Maine.