Inside Dance Conversation with Rennie Harris Puremovement

Celebration Barn – Bates Dance Festival

In the days leading up to their performances at the Bates Dance Festival, choreographers and performers will fan out across Lewiston-Auburn and as far away as Portland to reveal the secrets and stories behind their work in a series of free Inside Dance Community Conversations.

Celebration Barn is proud to partner with Bates Dance Festival to present one of these conversations with Rennie Harris Puremovement on Monday, July 16 at 7:00 PM. The event is free. Box Office: 207-743-8452

Rennie Harris has taken hip-hop dance from inner-city streets to a mainstream audience. In so doing he has transformed both art form and audience, and has proven that hip-hop can transcend boundaries of race, religion, gender and economic status. With his company, Rennie Harris Puremovement, this North Philadelphia native is internationally known for such works as the spiritually driven “Facing Mekka” and the critically acclaimed “Rome and Jewels,” a hip-hop opera that transports “Romeo and Juliet” into the world of rival B-boys and street gangs which premiered at the Bates Dance Festival in 1999.

“There’s the option to buy a ticket and sit in the theater to watch beautiful, dynamic contemporary dance,” explains Bates Dance Festival director Shoshana Currier, “but with our new program, there’s now the option to meet a dance artist at the public library or the YWCA and chat about their work. So the festival can be meaningful in different ways to different people.”

Additional conversations will also take place July 2 to August 1 in Lewiston, Auburn, and Portland.

For the full schedule of free Bates Dance Festival events, visit batesdancefestival.org/performances/more-events.

For mainstage performances, visit batesdancefestival.org/performances/. Information about Concerts on the Quad appears at bates.edu/conference/summer-lakeside-concert-series.