Vail Dance Festival 2025 Will Feature Five Companies, Eight World Premieres, and More Than 150 Artists

The non-profit Vail Valley Foundation has announced initial programming for the 37th annual Vail Dance Festival scheduled to take place July 25 – August 5 throughout the Vail Valley, including Beaver Creek, Avon and the Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater in Vail. Led by Artistic Director Damian Woetzel, the internationally acclaimed Festival will include 14 performances and over 30+ events throughout the season celebrating excellence and innovation in the world of dance.

Anchoring the season are five acclaimed major companies that will present performances and repertory specially curated for this year’s Festival: Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet, Paul Taylor Dance Company, A.I.M by Kyle Abraham, Colorado Ballet, and BalletX. 

Acclaimed tap dancer Michelle Dorrance returns to the Festival with The Center Will Not Hold; a new production created by Dorrance and Ephrat Asherie. Born from “a little room,” a short duet created and performed by Asherie and Dorrance in December 2022, The Center Will Not Hold features a company of 11 extraordinary performers and original music composed by Donovan Dorrance and performed live.

The Festival will present a one-night-only Balanchine Celebration, featuring dances by George Balanchine, the greatest of ballet choreographers and founder of New York City Ballet. This evening will celebrate Balanchine’s genius with masterpieces including Concerto Barocco, which will feature Colorado Ballet with Festival stars, the bravura showpiece Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux, and Apollo, with Roman Mejia making his debut in the title role and India Bradley in the role of Terpsichore.

Choreographers making new dances this season will include Festival returnees Melissa Toogood, Michelle Dorrance, Larry Keigwin, Justin Peck, and Bobbi Jene Smith. And in their Festival debuts, new works will be created by Robert Battle, Gianna Reisen, and My’Kal Stromile. New dances will be featured throughout the Festival and on the NOW: Premieres program, which focuses on new work exclusively.

The International Evenings of Dance, which since 1993 have brought a succession of extraordinary artists to the Vail stage, continue the tradition this summer with dancers making their Festival debuts including American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Chloe Misseldine and Royal Danish Ballet principal dancer Ryan Tomash. Returning dance stars will include Broadway and ballet star Robbie Fairchild, American Ballet Theatre’s Aran Bell, Isabella Boylston, Catherine Hurlin, Calvin Royal III, and James Whiteside, New York City Ballet’s Chun Wai Chan, Joseph Gordon, Sara Mearns, Roman Mejia, Mira Nadon, Tiler Peck, and Unity Phelan, modern dance force Melissa Toogood, and street dance pioneer Lil Buck. These dance stars will be joined by rising artists including Dominika Afanasenkov, Olivia Bell, Gilbert Bolden III, India Bradley, Naomi Corti,  and KJ Takahashi from New York City Ballet, ABT’s Takumi Miyake, independent dancers Rachel Lockhart (MJ: The Musical), Zack Gonder and Daisy Kate Jacobson (Twyla Tharp's Diamond Jubilee national tour), and Spencer Lenain, Kayla Mak, and Emiko Nakagawa who are all former Vail Dance Festival Scholars-in-Residence and are now emerging young artists in the professional dance world.

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