SEPTEMBER

The third weekend of September launches the fall dance calendar with performances from two established companies: RADAR and Richmond Ballet. 

Richmond Ballet opens its season Sept. 17-22 with the last performances staged at the company’s in-house Studio Theatre. Titled simply “Studio Finale,” the show will include “What’s Going On,” a ballet by Val Caniparoli, and a new work from Richmond Ballet Artistic Director Ma Cong, continuing a collaboration that began in 2009. 

Following the company’s move into the Reynolds Metal building at 407 E. Canal St. in 2000, building renovations created the Studio Theatre, a performance space with 250 seats. In spring 2025, however, the company will take up residency at the Leslie Cheek Theater in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, newly renovated, and with nearly double the seating and a small pit for musicians. 

“We really don’t have space [at our Canal Street location] to do everything we want,” Ma says. “One of my visions is how live music can be involved [in productions]. That kind of idea would be hard to achieve in our [in-house] theater.”

Ma, who became artistic director in July, following the retirement of founding artistic director Stoner Winslett, says he hopes people who only know Richmond Ballet from its annual “Nutcracker” performances will expand their dance menu to include contemporary works.

 “I like to compare [this] to food experimentation,” Ma says. “Some people go to the same restaurant and order the same dish, apple salad. I say, try the strawberry salad. Maybe you don’t like it, but you might find something you never knew about yourself.”

The same weekend, RADAR presents its annual season performance Sept. 20 and 21 at the Lynn Theatre at Brightpoint Community College’s Midlothian campus. Co-Artistic Director Kara Pendergraph says eight choreographers are contributing individual, original works ranging in length from four to eight minutes on the theme of outer space. 

“[The theme is] nice because it gives the show a throughline from start to finish and also gives the choreographer a chance to put their own spin on it, to take it wherever they want to take it,” Pendergraph says.

RADAR was organized in 2011 as Richmond Area Dance Artists Redefined, using the acronym for simplicity. Originally including dancers who had been part of Tara Mullins’ Z Mullins Dance Company, RADAR now has some original members but also “a new wave” of younger dancers, Pendergraph notes.“We have women in their mid-40s, and also 22-and 23-year-old dancers,” she says. “It’s been really nice to have fresh dancers and choreographers. We call them the junior company [because of their ages], but there’s nothing junior about them; they’re phenomenal.” 

OCTOBER

Dance will be front and center at the University of Richmond’s Modlin Center for the Arts with three performances in quick succession. 

On Oct. 20, Richmond’s Latin Ballet of Virginia offers a Latin dance workshop and free performance as part of UR’s Family Arts Day. The 3 p.m. presentation of “Fiesta Del Sol” (Party of the Sun) at the Alice Jepson Theatre will showcase the many influences on Latin dance, including rumba, salsa, merengue, mambo and more. Founded in 1997, LBOV is a professional dance company and dance school that offers performances throughout the state. 

Coming Oct. 25 is UR’s 14th annual Celebration of Dance, with diverse pieces from student clubs and university dance companies. Just a day later, Oct. 26, Step Afrika! presents “The Migration: Reflections on Jacob Lawrence,” a signature piece inspired by Lawrence’s 60-panel painting “The Migration Series.” The dance traces the historic migration of Blacks from the rural South to the industrial North to escape racial oppression and violence in the early 1900s.

NOVEMBER

At press time, Conflux Dance Theater was in the final stages of inking a deal to bring its fall performance to the Perkinson Center for the Arts on Nov. 23. “We’re always trying to do things a little bit differently,” says Artistic Director Miguel Perez, noting the company has used Grace Street Theater at VCU in the past, but demand for the space makes scheduling difficult. 

The company, which formed pre-pandemic but didn’t have its first show until May 2023, wants to be an inclusive and diverse company that provides an outlet for underrepresented choreographers to present their work. The November performance will feature works from visiting choreographers Stephanie Martinez of Chicago and Norbert De La Cruz III of New York. 

“I am Latino and part of the LGBTQ+ community,” Perez says. “We don’t have to go back to our history and rewrite it, we get to innovate ourselves. We get to write our own script. Our board members, our dance members, our audience members are all representative of our community. We want kids to see themselves on stage.”

JANUARY 2025

Sneaking a peek ahead: Starr Foster Dance presents “Page to Stage III” in five performances at Firehouse Theatre Dec. 5-8. Conceived by founder Starrene Foster in 2015 as a way to create collaboration between writers and dancers, “Page to Stage III” will feature dance pieces inspired by nonfiction and fiction shared by eight writers. Full text of the written works will be included in the playbill.  

“The whole project is artists supporting artists,” Foster says. “It’s definitely part of my mission as an artist here in Richmond, to involve the community. We’re lush with so many different artists.”

A grant from CultureWorks is supporting this year’s “Page to Stage,” which follows earlier iterations in 2015 and 2022. While Foster describes the show as a “huge” undertaking, she is enthusiastic. “I think Richmond loves collaboration, and Richmond loves new and different things,” she says. “Because we use different authors each time, the format will shift a bit and what we’re presenting is really different.”

For a more traditional experience, Richmond Ballet’s “The Nutcracker” returns to the Dominion Energy Center from Dec. 7-23. The classical ballet was refreshed in 2022, under the direction of then-Artistic Director Stoner Winslett, with new costumes and scenery and a new Chinese dance from then-Associate Artistic Director Ma Cong. Tickets are on sale now.