For artists, a creative retreat at the Concord Academy
For audiences, a provocative opportunity

For 10 years, Summer Stages Dance at Concord Academy has been a fertile dance oasis smack dab in the middle of Boston’s dry summer season. The three-week festival brings together student dancers, choreographers, and renowned teacher/performers for a complete immersion in dance creation and performance. And for audiences, the Meet the Artist Performance Series offers some of the most provocative, high-quality programming around.

Celebrating
Tapestry and Still Time

This year’s Tapestry Dance Champion Award went not to a dancer but to a devoted musical collaborator, Paul Arslanian. Friday’s performance at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington honored the pianist and composer who led the classy combos accompanying Dance Inn’s annual productions.
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The next night, chairs played a big part in Still Time, a wonderful group dance directed by Judith Chaffee, on the concert of Margot Parsons and DanceVisions at Boston University Dance Theater.

Former Boston Ballet ballerina Denise Pons will kick off the Faculty Dance Tradition Lectures of Boston Conservatory’s Summer Dance Program Thursday by talking about her career.

Changing points of view in ‘Prone’
John Jasperse’s startling “Prone” doesn’t so much throw open doors of perception as illuminate the contents on the other side of the wall.

The 70-minute blend of movement, original music by Zeena Parkins, and design elements ranging from skirted light bulbs to Mylar panels suspended from the ceiling is an investigation of the particulars of perspective: that is, how truth -- indeed, reality -- depends on your vantage point. It is, in turn, mind-bending and amusing, restful and jarring.

John Jasperse’s Prone at Concord
Jasperse’s piece isn’t exactly a throwback to the 1970s, but it returns to a whole series of potent countercultural ideas having to do with reawakening us to the energies around and within us — the way we see and hear, the way space changes with weather and light, the feeling of our skin, our weight, our tensions, our dormant terrors.

Armitage returns but her innovative spirit never left
Karole Armitage hasn’t brought her dances to Boston in nearly two decades. But during those years she has remained at the cutting edge of contemporary dance. So when her company appears tonight at Summer Stages Dance in Concord and at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Becket next month, don’t expect just a bittersweet homage to the 1980s, ....

Trifecta
‘Three Women Solo’ at Concord

It’s hard to imagine a more diverse assemblage of bodies, temperaments, and performing presences than the roster for this year’s “Three Women Solo” at Summer Stages Dance. The idea for a mini-gala of powerhouse female talent was dreamed up by Summer Stages co-director Richard Colton three years ago; the concert a week ago Thursday featured Risa Steinberg, a small, tensile inheritor of the Juilliard-Limón tradition, Nora Chipaumire, a fierce, imposing native of Zimbabwe, and the elegant, long-lined Canadian Peggy Baker