trailerpilot

St. Louis' Gateway Arch. Photo by Matt Kozlowski.

Last year’s inaugural Spring to Dance Festival smacked of the kind of event that’s had years to mature: A top-shelf assortment of great companies, many new to me, packed bills over Memorial Day weekend. Also, the twin houses of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners‘ Touhill Performing Arts Center are ideally suited to presenting both intimate and large-scale work. Now that Dance St. Louis has one under its belt, it’s forging ahead for another great, why-did-it-take-this-long-to-get-this-kind-of-thing-together series.

Not to toot the hometown horn, but—as with last year—Chicago comes out most-represented among participating cities. In the big house (the 1,600-seat Anheuser-Busch Performance Hall) there will be performances by:

Thursday

• Dance Kaleidoscope (Denver)
• Nashville Ballet
• Buglisi Dance Theatre (NYC)
• Stuart Pimsler Dance (Minneapolis)
• Milwaukee Ballet
• Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago

Friday

• St. Louis Ballet
• Natya Dance Theatre (Chicago)
• Kansas City Ballet
• BalletX (Philadelphia)
• Nejla Yatkin (Washington, D.C.)
• River North Chicago Dance Company

Saturday

• Ballet Memphis
• MADCO (St. Louis)
• Paradigm Dance Company (NYC)
• Dancing Wheels (Cleveland)
• BalletMet Columbus
• Hubbard Street 2

While the lovely Lee Theater welcomes:

Thursday

• ATrek Dance Collective (St. Louis)
• Attack Theatre (Pittsburgh)
• ARENA Dances (Minneapolis)
• Thodos Dance Chicago

Friday

• Momenta (Oak Park)
• Eisenhower Dance Ensemble (Birmingham, MI)
• Hedwig Dances
• Deeply Rooted Dance Theater (Chicago)

Saturday

• Chicago Human Rhythm Project
• Lucky Plush Productions
• The Slaughter Project (St. Louis)
• Wylliams/Henry Contemporary Dance Company (Kansas City, MO)

I don’t think I need to tell you that’s one hell of a lineup. The atmosphere is great, tickets are an insanely cheap ten bucks per show, and with GPS and a radar detector you can sleep in, hit the road and make it down in time for curtain (I did). If you live nearby, well, I dare you to come up with an excuse. I can’t make it this year, sadly, so go and holler for me.