Lila Productions

08/29/2026

Today’s the day! 💜

As we get ready to welcome everyone to the 2026 LILA Dance Festival, we want to take a moment to thank the businesses, organizations, and community partners who have helped make today possible.

Their support allows us to keep the festival free and accessible to our community while bringing artists, performances, and opportunities together right here in New Hampshire.

We are incredibly grateful to each of our 2026 sponsors for believing in LILA and helping us bring another year of dance to Rochester.

Please join us in thanking them, and we’ll see you at Rochester Commons today! ✨

📍 Rochester Commons Park
🕛 Festival begins at 12 PM
🎟️ FREE admission

08/27/2026

Eat, Drink & Support LILA | 2026 LILA Dance Festival

Come hungry and thirsty! This year, our LILA-run food and beverage stands will have plenty to enjoy throughout the day, with proceeds supporting LILA Productions.

Stop by the Chinburg Properties Beer Garden for brews from Back Hill Beer Company and Auspicious Brew Hard Kombucha, along with our special Triad Winery x LILA rosé and canned cocktails.

Your favorite LILA Lemonade is back, and this year we’re adding strawberry lemonade to the lineup! Our LILA food stand will also be serving hot dogs throughout the day, along with barbecue sandwiches from MrSippy BBQ and fresh, Hawaiian-inspired poke bowls from Ohana Kitchen, giving you plenty of options to grab a bite without leaving the festival.

Grab something to eat or drink, enjoy the performances, and support LILA at the same time. 💜

📅 Saturday, August 29, 2026
📍 Rochester Commons, Rochester, NH
🎟️ Free Admission

08/27/2026

LILA Dance Festival is a finalist for Best Event-Local in the Seacoast Community’s Choice Awards!

If you’ve enjoyed the festival over the years, we’d be so grateful for your vote. Voting is open now!

And we can’t wait to see you THIS SATURDAY at Rochester Common! ✨

Check it out now!

08/27/2026

We’re excited to welcome two community speakers to this year’s LILA Dance Festival MainStage performances!

Before our 3:00 PM MainStage, Mayor Chuck Grassie of Rochester will join us to welcome audiences and help kick off the afternoon performance. The City of Rochester NH has been home to the LILA Dance Festival since the beginning, and we’re proud to continue building this event in a city that has embraced the arts, community gatherings, and the idea to Choose Rochester.

Before our 6:00 PM MainStage, we’ll welcome Corinne Breton-Benfield, Executive Director of Stay Work Play NH, who will share a little about Stay Work Play’s work creating opportunities, connections, and community across the state. There’s a natural connection between our work and theirs. We believe dancers shouldn’t have to leave New Hampshire to pursue professional opportunities, and audiences shouldn’t have to travel outside of New Hampshire to experience high-quality dance.

We’re grateful to have both of them joining us this Saturday at Rochester Commons!

📅 Saturday, August 29, 2026
📍 Rochester Commons, Rochester, NH
🎟️ Free Admission

08/26/2026

✨ Meet the Artist - 2026 LILA Dance Festival ✨

We’re excited to welcome back Tina Forés-Hitt to this year’s LILA Dance Festival!

Tina is a contemporary dance artist, choreographer, and educator who grew up between Valencia, Spain and Austin, Texas. After studying contemporary dance at the conservatorio professional in Valencia, she continued her dance training in Holland and Austria before performing internationally with The BODHI Project. She has since become a mother and is based in southern Vermont, working as a freelance artist across film, theater, and dance. Tina is currently pursuing an MFA in Dance at Bennington College.

At this year’s festival, Tina will perform Me, myself, and I, a solo created from her experience of becoming a mother and the desire to reconnect with her own evolving sense of self. First performed in 2022, much of the work is improvised, allowing Tina to respond to how she feels in the moment and witness her own experience through movement. Now, several years later, she is returning to the piece from a different place in her life, motherhood, and artistic practice, exploring what has changed and what the work reveals to her now.

We’ve also been fortunate to work with Tina through our Discover Dance program this past April, where she helped rehearse Millie Heckler's work from the 2025 LILA Dance Festival and taught free community classes for children at Rochester NH Recreation & Arena . We’re looking forward to welcoming her back to Rochester and sharing her work with LILA audiences once again.

📅 Saturday, August 29, 2026
📍 Rochester Commons, Rochester, NH
🎟️ Free Admission

08/25/2026

🌟 Vendor Spotlight - 2026 LILA Dance Festival 🌟

We’re excited to welcome the Mass General Brigham / Wentworth-Douglass Hospital Dance and Performing Arts Medicine Program to this year’s LILA Dance Festival!

Their team includes physicians and physical therapists who specialize in the care and rehabilitation of dancers, musicians, and other performing artists. By combining personal knowledge of the performing arts with evidence-based care, the program supports artists through injury prevention, rehabilitation, performance-specific biomechanics, and overall wellness.

Here on the Seacoast, specialized providers at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital bring their own backgrounds in dance and performing arts to their work, helping them better understand the unique physical and artistic demands performers face.

Be sure to stop by their table at Rochester Commons to learn more about the program and the resources available to dancers and performing artists in our region.

📅 Saturday, August 29, 2026
📍 Rochester Commons, Rochester, NH
🎟️ Free Admission

08/25/2026

The 2026 LILA Dance Festival is this Saturday, August 29 at Rochester Commons Park!

Join us for a full day of dance, live music, food, vendors, family-friendly activities, and more.

Swipe through for the full schedule, performing artists, and everything happening throughout the day. Save this post so you can plan your day!

We hope to see you there! 💜

📅 Saturday, August 29
📍 Rochester Commons Park
🎟️ Free admission

08/24/2026

✨ Meet the Artist - 2026 LILA Dance Festival ✨

We’re honored to welcome Skeels Danse to this year’s LILA Dance Festival!

Founded and directed by internationally recognized choreographer Andrew Skeels, Skeels Danse is a Montréal-based contemporary dance company known for physically dynamic, emotionally driven work that blends classical technique with contemporary movement. Andrew’s choreographic career includes work with companies such as Nederlands Dans Theater, Bayerisches Staatsballett, Cirque du Soleil, and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, with his work reaching audiences internationally. Through Skeels Danse, Andrew continues to develop his distinctive choreographic voice, creating work that is both highly physical and deeply human.

In addition to creating a new work as our 2026 guest choreographer, Andrew will also take the stage himself in a performance with Skeels Danse, giving audiences the opportunity to experience him both as a choreographer and performer.

We’re incredibly grateful to have Andrew Skeels and Skeels Danse joining us in Rochester and to share their work with LILA audiences this year.

Stay tuned as we continue introducing the incredible artists joining us for the 2026 LILA Dance Festival!

📅 Saturday, August 29, 2026
📍 Rochester Commons, Rochester, NH
🎟️ Free Admission

📸 Photo by

08/24/2026

🌟 Vendor Spotlight | 2026 LILA Dance Festival 🌟

We’re excited to welcome back Artists In Motion Apparel to this year’s LILA Dance Festival!

Created by dancer, choreographer, and educator Christina Belinsky, Artists In Motion Apparel is an upcycled, hand silk-screen printed dancewear brand designed to move from the studio to the street. Each one-of-a-kind piece combines dance-inspired graphics with secondhand clothing, bringing together creativity, sustainability, and community.

Christina created Artists In Motion Apparel out of her love for dance, fashion, and a desire to take action toward a more environmentally sustainable future. Every piece is hand selected, designed, and crafted by Christina, giving each item its own distinct character.

Be sure to stop by Artists In Motion Apparel at Rochester Commons to browse their one-of-a-kind, hand-printed pieces and find something that brings a little dance-inspired creativity into your everyday style.

📅 Saturday, August 29, 2026
📍 Rochester Commons, Rochester, NH
🎟️ Free Admission

08/23/2026

✨ Meet the Artist - 2026 LILA Dance Festival ✨

This year’s festival will feature excerpts from Le Corsaire, originally staged for our Discover Dance performance this past April!

Presented in partnership with Rochester NH Recreation & Arena, Discover Dance brought professional dance into the community through a performance featuring a range of dance styles, along with free classes for participants of all ages. We’re excited to bring a piece of that program back to the stage at this year’s LILA Dance Festival.

The Le Corsaire excerpts will include the Odalisque Trio, performed by Audrey Eastman, Kaitlin Griffin, and Alicia Potter, and the Le Corsaire Pas de Deux, performed by Naomi Sawyer and Assaf Benchetrit.

We love being able to carry work from one LILA program into another and give our dancers and audiences another opportunity to experience it.

Stay tuned as we continue sharing what you’ll see at this year’s LILA Dance Festival!

📅 Saturday, August 29, 2026
📍 Rochester Commons, Rochester, NH
🎟️ Free Admission