Lincoln Center Debuts Biannual Contemporary Dance Festival

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Two U.S. premieres and two New York premieres populate the Festival programs, plus more.

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Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is launching The Pasculano Collaborative for Contemporary Dance, which anchors this year's Summer for the City , with a focus on movement, community, and artistry. The season features international and New York-based talent, numerous commissions, wellness events, and new education initiatives-all free or Choose-What-You-Pay.

The inaugural Lincoln Center Contemporary Dance Festival - a new, biannual festival that will be offered each summer and winter-establishes a consistent and ambitious home for contemporary dance at Lincoln Center.

Beginning June 18 in Alice Tully Hall, five international companies will offer cutting-edge works exploring different dance forms through themes of personal heritage and origin, identity and transformation, and the climate crisis. Two U.S. premieres and two New York premieres populate the Festival programs, by choreographers from the United Kingdom, South Korea, Belgium, Spain, and France. Educational offerings this summer will include pre-performance talks and professional dance workshops with Akram Khan Company and Sung Im Her , as well as the launch of a professional development cohort for early-career dance professionals to participate in behind-the-scenes learning during the Festival. The second iteration of the Festival, in January 2027, will present US-based companies.

Established from the largest single programming gift in LCPA's history, the Pasculano Collaborative for Contemporary Dance paves the way for the most dynamic and innovative contemporary dance from across the globe to join the cultural crossroads of Lincoln Center, honoring the distinguished legacy of dance on campus and investing in the next generation of dance artists.

Donald Borror began as Director of the Collaborative in December of last year and spearheads the biannual Contemporary Dance Festival alongside a variety of programmatic resources and collaborations to support dancers, choreographers, and companies in New York City and beyond.

Also this summer, a new weekly outdoor dance series on Hearst Plaza will run for eight weeks, beginning in June. This year's Dance Encounters spotlights New York-based companies in intimate and dynamic performances that offer audiences the delight of up-close and personal experiences. The series features a wide variety of works commissioned or reimagined to be enjoyed al fresco, in conversation with the architecture of the Lincoln Center campus.

"Lincoln Center is uniquely positioned to draw on the creative power of a campus where contemporary dance has been part of the story from the very beginning," said Shanta Thake , Ehrenkranz Chief Artistic Officer of LCPA. "As a global gathering place for the performing arts, we foster artistry where international voices meet New York legacy; where artists are supported not just to present work, but to create, develop, and sustain creativity that meets the moment today and engages in cultural dialogues across artistic and civic spaces."

Summer for the City Dance Programming Highlights Include:

The New York premiere of Basel-based choreographer Jeremy Nedd's from rock to rock...aka how magnolia was taken for granite , which explores the Milly Rock, a viral dance move with infinite possibilities (Jun 18 - 19);

the New York premiere of Yinka Esi Graves's The Disappearing Act , shining a light on the African roots of flamenco (Jun 20 - 21);

South Korean choreographer Sung Im Her | Her Project uses pulsating movement to create a sense of urgency around the changing environment with the U.S. premiere of 1 Degree Celsius (Jun 24-25);

Rachid Ouramdane | Compagnie de Chaillot presents TORDRE , an intimate, sensitive duet celebrating atypical physicality (Jun 27-28); and

the U.S. premiere of Akram Khan Company's newest work, Thikra: Night of Remembering , which explores heritage and ancestry in a desert landscape with an international female ensemble (Jul 2-5), in collaboration with Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival.

Three new commissions, including Mindscape from Shen Wei Dance Arts / Guangdong Modern Dance Company (Jul 22-25) as part of Chinese Arts Week, co-commissioned with American Dance Festival; Naiad Metal by Butoh artist Vangeline (Aug 5-8); and a world premiere digital commission of a new dance film by EICHTERLING, Bret Easterling and Julia Eichten, titled WITH LOVE (Jul 15-17). Other performances include Omari Wiles / Les Ballet Afrik (Jun 17-18); Brooklyn-based Ogemdi Ude's outdoor version of her celebrated performance MAJOR (Jun 24-27); Anna Sperber's Bow Echo (Jul 1-3); and Benjamin Akio Kimitch's Tiger Hands (Jul 29-31);

Two film series, Movement on Film: Athletic Shorts (Jul 15-17) and Born to Fly: Elizabeth Streb vs. Gravity (Jul 10)

Chinese Arts Week dance events include Chinatown Records and Red Silk Dancers , Zhao Family's Awakening Lion Dance and the Fumei Youth Yingge Team from Guangdong China, and Kung Fu Hip Hop 功夫街舞 .

On Wednesday, June 10, Summer for the City kicks off with a triple header of dance:

KEIGWIN + COMPANY's Rhapsody , a community dance work featuring 30 New Yorkers;

Inayat: A Duet for Four merges two ancient north Indian performance traditions, featuring Aga Khan Music Award Winner Asin Khan Langa and the exceptional SAZ, as well as emerging virtuoso dancer Tarini Tripathi, and

a Swing Dance Party with Caleb Teicher & Company and Eyal Vilner Big Band

This summer also sees the return of the BAAND Together Dance Festival , made possible by CHANEL ; a daylong celebration, Street Dance Takeover: Beats, Battles, and Breaking , featuring multigenerational artists like French choreographer Saido Lehlouh with Wild Cat; two new works at the David Rubenstein Atrium, The Ocean Keeps No Memory of the Lines by Christopher Núñez and Tamisha A. Guy's In the Depths of Blue ; the ever-popular social dance series across swing, Hip Hop, salsa, ballroom, and more; our silent discos under the stars, outdoors on Josie Robertson Plaza; and so much more!

Schmigadoon!

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_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Lincoln-Center-to-Launch-PASCULANO-COLLABORATIVE-FOR-CONTEMPORARY-DANCE-Festival-20260514)._