A family-friendly outdoor dance festival is debuting on Sept. 30, 2017, in Wake Forest at E. Carroll Joyner Park, 701 Harris Road. The Wake Forest Dance Festival is a daylong event from 10 a.m. – 6:30 p.m. that features professional dancers and top-quality performers. The event is the Triangle’s first and only free outdoor dance festival.

The inaugural event is presented by Wake Forest Arts in partnership with the Town of Wake Forest and will bring a day of dance to the Triangle in an outdoor setting. The event features national and regional professional dancers, as well as local rising advanced dance performers.

The festival will begin with an educational technical rehearsal in the morning and conclude with a staged performance lasting through the early evening. During the day, mini dance performances showcasing various dance styles will take place in select areas of Joyner Park culminating with a staged performance.

• 10 a.m. – noon: Technical Rehearsal – Attendees who want a behind the scenes look can attend the Technical Rehearsal, which is a run-through of the Festival Concert that will take place later in the day. Some of the performers and the stage manager will be available to answer questions.

• 1 p.m. – 4 p.m.: Tour in Motion – A guided tour will begin at the top of every hour and give attendees the opportunity to experience different dance genres in intimate outdoor settings throughout Joyner Park.

• 5:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.: Festival Concert– The main concert of the festival will feature professional dancers and rising advanced dancers from local dance institutions.

The festival’s director Mariya “Masha” Dashkina Maddux is a former principal dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company in New York City. Currently, she is a professional concert dance performer and a dance educator living in Wake Forest. She hopes the festival will bring attention to the art of dance in the community.

An event sponsor has made it possible for Maddux and former principal dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company, Miki Orihara, to each perform two pieces from the Martha Graham Dance Company repertoire – Serenata Morisca, a solo choreographed by modern dance pioneer Ted Shawn in 1916, and Lamentation, one of the most iconic and celebrated solos choreographed by Martha Graham in 1930. The public would not usually get to see these performances at no cost.

Orihara is also being featured in a solo modern dance performance at the Renaissance Center in Wake Forest called Resonance on Friday, Sept. 29, the night before the festival begins.

Other professional dancers to be featured:

• Durham-based Renay Aumiller Dances will feature a solo choreographed by director and founder of the company Renay Aumiller

• Former Carolina Ballet dancer Manuel Barriga, will premiere a duet with his wife, Mayerlin Munoz Rodriguez

• Kim Jones and E.E. Balcos, dance professors at UNC-Charlotte will premiere a work as part of a Charlotte-based dance collective Movement Migration, directed by Kim Jones

• Durham-based Gaspard&Dancers will present a duet, choreographed by the director and founder of the company Gaspard Louis

• Aimee Moynihan, director of Wake Forest Academy of Fine Arts, in a duet with Maddux

• Greensboro-based Theatre of Movement, directed by Duane Cyrus, will present an excerpt from an evening length original work, Camacho

• The main event will also feature dancers of Destiny Dance Institute; Dance Attic; Wake Forest Academy of Fine Arts; Franklin Academy High School’s dance department; Get in 5th Productions and the Meredith College dance department.

The event will also pay tribute to long-time Wake Forest dance instructor Elizabeth “Betty” Hunt Holding and her dance legacy. Having studied ballet under famed Russian choreographer George Balanchine and performed with the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes, Holding arrived in Wake Forest in the 1940s. She opened Wake Forest’s most historic dance studio, the Holding School of Dance, in her home where she taught dance to students for more than 30 years until her death in 2007. In addition to the family being a visionary sponsor of the event, Holding’s great granddaughter, Millie Kerr, 16, will perform a solo during the Festival Concert.

“We encourage people to pack a picnic and blanket and hang out at the festival for a few hours to get the full experience,” said Maddux. “Our goal is for festival-goers to feel inspired and entertained.”

Festival attendees should adhere to E. Carroll Joyner Park rules when attending the event, which include no alcohol or personal grills and pets must be kept on a leash. The full list of park rules and reminders can be found on the Town of Wake Forest’s website (www.wakeforestnc.gov). Wake Forest Arts will sell soda and water but there will be no other food and drink options.

Visit the event’s website www.WakeForestDanceFestival.org and Facebook page www.facebook.com/WakeForestDance for more information on the event, the indoor backup venue in case of inclement weather, and for sponsor and volunteer opportunities.