Three Nights = One Year

Dance aficionados are already well aware that St. Louis is both home to and host of a year-round cycle of dance performances. But if your schedule is tight, or you just want to cram that year's worth of entertainment into one weekend, mark your calendar now for the Spring to Dance Festival, which returns Thursday through Saturday (May 23 to 25). The brainchild of Dance St. Louis artistic director Michael Uthoff, Spring to Dance features 30 companies converging on St. Louis for three jam-packed nights that showcase talented artists from New York to San Francisco -- and all points inbetween. Each evening begins at 5:30 p.m. with a series of free performances by local dance troupes in the Terrace Lobby of the Touhill Performing Arts Center on University of Missouri-St. Louis' campus (1 University Drive at Natural Bridge Road; 314-534-6622 or www.dancestlouis.org). Mainstage performances cost $15 per evening and begin at 7:30 p.m, and feature ten different professional companies each night. More than half of this year's guests are new to the festival, which means even if you're a perennial attendee, you're going to see something new and amazing each night -- whether that's a kinetic narrative courtesy of Stuart Pimsler Dance & Theater or Eddie Madril's modern approach to Native American hoop dancing (Saturday).
May 23-25, 2013