For four consecutive days in September 2008, Dance New Amsterdam hosted close to sold-out performances for the 2008 ADG Performance Festival, which presented a unique opportunity for New Yorkers to experience contemporary dance through the visions of 44 choreographers from across the country. The smorgasbord was a perfect forum to sample the works of less-known artists and distinguished choreographers, and audience members hopefully followed-up with their favorites for future performances. As a performer at the Festival, I noted that the festival achieved much more than simply a show for dance-lovers. Taking place behind the scenes were opportunities for introductions and conversation amongst choreographers and dancers, a forum to see and simultaneously discuss each other’s works, and exposure to new audience members and critics in NYC.

For example, just one week after the festival, a hundred miles from the stage where I performed after Kun-Yang Lin, I stepped onto a subway train in Philadelphia and ran into him yet again! Thanks to the ADG, we were not just two people seated next to each other, but two dancers actively exchanging ideas. Similarly, while chatting backstage with Betsy Fisher from Hawa’ii, we discovered we knew a dancer in common, and I was thrilled to learn about the experiences shared by proponents of multicultural dance forms in Hawa’ii.

Despite all that technology has to offer with access to dance reviews online and websites with video clips and other dance information, nothing compares to sitting in the dark and watching performance unfold live — which is what I gleefully did for the Saturday matinee. All of the choreographers and works were new for me, and I was impressed with the diversity of styles and ages represented. Ether Net (videography and choreography by Marilynn Danitz) illustrated a seamless relationship between choreography and imagery projected on screen in tandem with live performance on stage by Katherine Black. Deborah Mauldin’s work, The Pillars of Creation, brought influences of Butoh to the stage and vivid, abstract shapes created through negative spaces of the human form. Meredith Blouin/Madame Spaghetti Arms was an audience favorite as she flopped around in out of the pot with gangly movements and endearing facial expressions relaying her predicament.

George Balanchine once said, “The word choreographer is too fancy for what I do, dance supplier is better. Dance does not exist unless someone provides it.” I’ll add to his statement that providers of dance often need a space to share their goods and an agent to facilitate that process—a role that the ADG took on with great success.