This is a very impressive line-up:

Twinkle toes unite: the Vail International Dance Festival
By Wren Wertin in The Vail Daily (Colorado, i think)

The Vail International Dance Festival has earned its name. Not to be confused with the odd weekend of visual follies, the 10-day festival (August 2 - 11) is a dance experience of truly international proportions.

The performances themselves are often the culmination of several years of work by Katherine Kersten, artistic director. Finding dance companies is the easy part - arranging for them to travel to the U.S. can be tricky, as with the Shanghai Dance Ensemble, which made its U.S. debut at last year's festival.

"It's unusual to see so many artists of this caliber together," said Kersten.

She's in a position to know. As a former dancer and current dance lover, she travels extensively with different ballet companies, seeking out good matches for the Vail Festival.

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<small>[ 05 July 2003, 07:02 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

Blimay! They've done it again - another impressive line-up:

Dance Festival: it's not just for twinkle toes
From The Vail Daily

From ballroom to classical ballet, the Vail International Dance Festival presents seasoned classics, contemporary masterpieces and world premieres. This year, the festival turns 15, and begins the first day of August.

August 1 and 2

The festival opens with the International Evenings of Dance at the Ford Amphitheater in Vail. Produced by festival director, Katherine Kersten, the roster of guest artists includes Irina Dvorovenko and Maxim Belotserkovksy, principal dancers from American Ballet Theatre; Dimitry Gudanov and Anastasia Goriasheva of the Bolshoi Ballet.

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It looks as if the mix of dance styles is about the same as last year, so why is it that last year's festival was for twinkle toes, and this year's festival is not just for twinkle toes? Maybe the non-twinkle toes last year were miffed.

Head over heels about dance
Vail, Aspen step out in style with top international summer fests. By Kyle MacMillan for The Denver Post

New York City might be this country's unquestioned dance capital, but Colorado will give it a run for its money for a least one month this summer.

Returning are the overlapping Aspen Dance Festival and Vail International Dance Festival, two of the top such offerings in the country, as their diverse, high-caliber lineups attest.

Between them, the two will offer 24 performances packed into four weeks, beginning Thursday in Aspen with Complexions, a New York troupe that draws its members from an array of major companies, including the Frankfurt Ballet and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre.

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A feature on the 2004 edition:

A feature on Trey McIntyre, whose "Chasing Squirrel" is being performed by Cincinnati Ballet at the festival:

<a href=http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~78~2323947,00.html target=_blank>Visionary fills void in world of ballet</a>
By Kyle MacMillan, Denver Post Fine Arts Critic