Kaatsbaan Dances the Summer Away with Emotional Month-Long Festival
Guest Curator Michèle Steinwald brings audiences into her world in surprising ways.
BodyCartography Project’s “Resisting Extinction: dying and decomposing practice”
This past weekend, with late summer light flooding the meadows of Tivoli, the 2025 Kaatsbaan Annual Festival opened with a dance performance that brought the past and future into the present and released the potential energy of this tightly wound moment with expressive movement. Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company’s revival of “Another Another History of Collage” was a reimagining of the final collaboration between Jones and Zane before Zane’s death from AIDS in 1988.
The work set the tone for a month of programming that leans into reflection, intimacy, and resonance. Performances and interdisciplinary multimedia programming runs now through September 27 in the theaters and the fields of the Kaatsbaan Cultural Park.
Ayodele Casel. Photo by Steven Pisano.
For Guest Curator Michèle Steinwald, bringing Jones’s work to Kaatsbaan highlighted the emotional complexity the art of dance can capture and share. “There’s a moment to gather, to heal, to remember,” she says, referencing not only the legacy of Jones and Zane but also the recent tragedy at Jacob’s Pillow, the heralded Berkshire summer dance venue where the sudden death of production manager Kat Sirico in a workplace accident led to the cancellation of the remainder of the 2025 summer season. “Given the timing of the tragedy… This is a moment to connect. It’s on all our hearts.”
Curating with Intimacy
Steinwald, a Montreal-based artist and producer with deep roots in experimental dance, was brought on to curate the 2025 festival on a tight timeline. She had less than a year to assemble an original slate of performances, installations, and site-responsive works. Rather than being constrained by time, she turned the challenge into a curatorial strength. “For my first festival,” she says, “I brought together artists and art forms closest to my heart… tap dance (my first love), Deborah Hay (my greatest mentor), and artists who create authentically and with care.”
Nichole Canuso’s “Lunar Retreat.”
Her approach is personal and spatial. Kaatsbaan’s expansive, natural campus has become both stage and collaborator. Steinwald is making a point to use the outdoors not just as a backdrop but as a tool for contemplation. The “Performance Lending Library” offers audio-guided movement meditations that audience members can experience together or solo, tucked under a tree or beside a sculpture. “I’m trying to create an environment that’s not just ‘come, see a show, and leave,’” she says. “Where do we linger?”
Upcoming Highlights
The month-long festival continues on weekends through September with a lineup that blends dance, music, film, and storytelling, many of them regional premieres or Kaatsbaan-specific creations.
This weekend, Nichole Canuso’s “Lunar Retreat” (September 6-7) is timed with the full moon and unfolds as an interactive, site-responsive experience across the studio complex and grounds. Co-created with ocean explorer Rebecca Rutstein and sound designer Bobby McElver, the piece invites contemplation of distance, grief, and transformation. It’s supported by the New England Foundation for the Arts and the Doris Duke Foundation.
"A Beast Eruption Held" in pracitce featuring Kayla Farrish and Karmel Small. Photo by Alexander Diaz.
Deborah Hay, whose legacy as a postmodern dance pioneer continues to ripple through generations of artists, including Steinwald, will be honored September 13, in a rare public program. Audiences will screen two films on Hay’s practice, Alignment is Everywhere and *Turn Your F^king Head, followed by an in-person conversation with Hay. “To have access to her in this way, outside the university context, is a real gift,” Steinwald says. “It’s a chance to hear how she’s molded her life around her values.”
Ayodele Casel and Kayla Farrish, presenting in tandem the weekend of September 19-21, offer another example of curatorial intention. Casel’s “Freedom… In Progress” is reprised alongside a new work set to improvised 1979 recordings by Max Roach and Cecil Taylor. Farrish brings two new pieces, “DOCILE” and “A Beast,” meditating on Black history, intimacy, and magical realism. “(The works of) these two artists are already in conversation, even though their styles are radically different,” Steinwald says. “It’s more than confidence—it’s generosity.”
Lori Goldston
The final weekend, September 26-27, features Lori Goldston, the genre-defying cellist known for her past work with Nirvana and her explorations in experimental, classical, and jazz. On Friday, she’ll accompany a curated program of handmade silent films in partnership with the Interbay Cinema Society. On Saturday, Goldston will premiere “Feedback Sonata,” a string trio composed for and performed with violinist Gwen Laster and violist Melanie Dyer. “This is a brand-new piece, for this moment, for these people,” Steinwald said. “It’s about vibration, presence, and shared energy—especially in an outdoor setting.”
Complementing the live performances is a visual arts exhibition curated by Hilary Greene, featuring works by Hudson Valley artists alongside bronze sculptures by Gaston Lachaise. And throughout the month, audiences can engage with participatory installations like “The Porch,” a storytelling series.
With the Hudson Valley’s dance community still absorbing the loss at Jacob’s Pillow, Kaatsbaan’s 2025 Festival doesn’t seek to replace, but it does provide a space for dance audiences to join together in a multitude of ways. “I definitely feel a responsibility to open up our arms,” Steinwald says.
Festival info and tickets are available at kaatsbaan.org.
