The Junction Dance Festival

06/12/2026

The Junction Dance Festival returns this July for its fifth year, bringing a week of dance, performance, workshops, and community events to the Upper Valley.

The festival begins with a catered Kickoff Party on Friday, July 10, followed by TJDF Norwich Community Dance Day on Saturday, July 11, and TJDF Thetford Community Dance Day on Sunday, July 12. Join us for a range of free workshops, classes, performances, and shared movement experiences for people of all ages and experience levels.

The festival continues on Saturday, July 18, with the TJDF Main Showcase at the Briggs Opera House in White River Junction, with performances at 2:00 PM and 7:00 PM. The showcase will feature dance artists and choreographers from across New England, sharing a wide range of styles, perspectives, and creative voices. Tickets are required for the Main Showcase.

TJDF is also thrilled to present a special by-donation event on Sunday, July 19, at 2:00 PM: delicate people by choreographer and dancer Ruth Childs. Originally from the Upper Valley and now based in Switzerland, Childs returns to share this international work with her hometown community.

Additional workshops, artists, and festival details will be announced in the coming weeks. More information, including tickets and the full festival schedule, is available at www.thejunctiondancefestival.org/event/2026-festival/

06/10/2026

06/04/2026

The Junction Dance Festival is excited to present the 2026 ChoreoLab Showcase on Saturday, June 27, featuring new work by this year’s ChoreoLab Residency artists, Sophia Hancock .choreography and Aida Claire Bauer , alongside guest artists Elizabeth Kurylo .kurylo , Calvin Walker , and Jessica Lee .

Presented at The Barn in Corinth, a renovated studio space set in a peaceful natural landscape, this performance offers audiences an intimate look at new and developing dance work shaped through the ChoreoLab residency process.

Tickets: https://sevendaystickets.com/e/tjdf-choreolab-showcase
More info: https://thejunctiondancefestival.org/about-the-choreolab-residency/

05/30/2026

The last of our TJDF 2026 Selection Committee Spotlight Series!

ERAN BUGGE began her dance training at the Orlando Ballet School and went on to a B.F.A in Ballet Pedagogy from Hartt School of the University of Hartford under the direction of Peggy Lyman. She joined the Paul Taylor Dance Company in 2005 and danced there for 19 years. She created 25 new dances with Mr. Taylor, and performed over 100 roles in 79 of his works including feature roles in Piazzolla Caldera, Company B, the White Duet from Roses and the role originated by Kate Johnson in Sunset. She has toured the world to perform and teach with highlights including China, Italy, Turkey, and Norway, as well as performing for the Queen of Thailand in Bangkok, and in the Odeon of Herodes Atticus at the Acropolis in Athens. During her tenure at Taylor Ms. Bugge was also featured in new work by Pam Tanowitz, Kyle Abraham, Larry Keigwin, and Doug Varone among others. She continues to perform as a freelance artist and has had the pleasure of setting Paul Taylor’s work on students at the Hartt School and Pace University.

Photograph by Ron Thiele
Video of Eran performing a solo from Paul Taylor’s Musical Offering

05/27/2026

TJDF 2026 Selection Committee Spotlight Series!

Tanesha Payne (she/we/us) is a San Antonio–based contemporary dance artist, choreographer, educator, and creative justice facilitator with over 20 years of professional experience. She approaches movement as a way of listening—to the body, to one another, and to the moment we share. Her work integrates contemporary dance, improvisation, and community- engaged movement to explore embodiment, connection, and collective inquiry.

Rooted in process-driven practice, Payne prioritizes presence over perfection and connection over performance. Across performance, education, and facilitation contexts, she positions movement as a tool for dialogue, shared meaning-making, and care.

Payne is the Founder and Artistic Director of sumRset Movement, a professional contemporary dance company dedicated to increasing the visibility, accessibility, and appreciation of dance. She is a Jacob’s Pillow Curriculum in Motion Practitioner, a former Artist-in-Residence for UTSA’s Mellon-funded Democratizing Racial Justice project, and an artist facilitator for M-America Arts Alliance. She holds a BFA in Dance Studies from Texas State University and an MFA in Choreography from Jacksonville University.

05/25/2026

TJDF 2026 Selection Committee Spotlight Series!

Suzanne Stern is a co-director of Avant Vermont Dance and a ballet teacher on faculty at the Dance Factory in Springfield, VT. She began her ballet and modern training as a youth in Vermont and continued at New York University, Peridance Center, and New Dance Group in New York City. She is also a multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer.

AVD is currently casting 10 Company dancers (including 5 soloists) and 10 Youth Ensemble members for our performance of SEASONS: Summer, July 11th as part of The Junction Dance Festival. Company dancers will receive a stipend of $100.
Please visit www.avantvt.com/auditions for details and to register.

05/20/2026

TJDF Welcomes our 2026 ChoreoLab Artists!

Aida Claire Bauer is a dancer, reader, maker, and friend. Having grown up in Norwich, VT, Aida spent seventeen years swimming, laughing, loving, and dancing on both sides of the Connecticut River and is excited to be a 2026 ChoreoLab recipient. Aida's work sits at the intersection of art, science, and social change. She approaches her experiences through questioning and is drawn to art that can hold contradiction, impermanence, and return. She is interested in how place and form shape what we create, and in making work with generosity, rigor, and attention. Aida is currently a student at the New School, studying Interdisciplinary Science and Contemporary Dance. Along with dancing, Aida also works at Three Cow Creamery in Corinth, VT.

A note from Aida on her ChoreoLab Project:

For this residency, I hope to create a piece that explores the relationship between embodiment and labor, especially the connection between farmwork and dance. Working in Corinth this summer for Liz Guenther of Three Cow Creamery makes the location especially meaningful to me, and I am excited by the possibility of making work in direct conversation with the place where I will be living and working. I am interested in creating something that feels responsive to the land, the studio, and the people in it — a piece that is grounded, porous, and alive to process.

05/19/2026

TJDF Welcomes our 2026 ChoreoLab Artists!

Sophia Hancock .choreography will be creating work in residency at TJDF beginning May 31. Sophia is a choreographer, dancer, and aspiring educator based in the New England area. She is a soon-to-be graduate of Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY, where she pursued a B.A. in Dance with a concentration in Choreography and Performance and a double major in Computer Science. As a creator, Sophia is driven by a deep curiosity for how bodies navigate, inhabit, and reshape space. She strives to cultivate spaces where artists are valued as integral creative collaborators, allowing the process to be rooted in dialogue and mutual respect.

A note from Sophia on her ChoreoLab Project:

For my proposed work, I’m interested in exploring how chance procedures, inspired by Merce Cunningham, can shape movement and spatial relationships on stage. I want to investigate and develop multiple “worlds” within a single space and observe how dancers navigate, coexist, or deliberately avoid interactions across these “worlds”. This project seeks to examine how bodies sculpt and respond to space, how independent systems interact, and how instinctive responses emerge in the tension between structure and unpredictability.

05/17/2026

TJDF 2026 Selection Committee Spotlight Series!

Amanda Whitworth (she/her) is a dancer, professor, mom, wife, entrepreneur, and chocolate lover! She is a Professor at Plymouth State University and the co-founder and Director of Strategic Initiatives at the healthcare education nonprofit, Articine. Amanda has travelled the world as a dancer and physical theatre artist and served as New Hampshire's eighth Artist Laureate and first dancer in the role. www.articine.org

Thanks, again, to the outstanding selection committee! Reminder for applicants that we will be in touch by the end of May.

05/15/2026

TJDF 2026 Selection Committee Spotlight Series! TJDF wants to highlight the artists on this year’s selection committee. Huge thank you to this committee as they review all of the performing artists applications! First up…

Sarah Vogelsang-Card is a soloist and longtime performer with the theatrical fusion dance company, The Accaliae () , where she has performed since 2009. The company explores storytelling and ritual movement through diverse dance disciplines and artistic forms. Living with a lifelong progressive neuromuscular condition that has impacted her mobility, including periods of wheelchair use, Sarah has developed a deeply adaptive and expressive approach to movement. Her work reflects resilience, creativity, and an evolving relationship with her body. Sarah performs in contemporary, Raq Sharqi, Afro Fusion Sharqi Dance, and folkloric styles, always centering storytelling as the heart of her performance.

📸 = Stephen Mease Photography