Amber Funk Barton’s latest pop-powered piece reflects the young, genre-bending spirit of this year’s Dancing on the Edge festival.

Amber Funk Barton listens to Top 40 radio, and she's not ashamed to admit it. Although some indie snobs might look down on bands like Snow Patrol and Athlete–some of Barton's faves–the 26-year-old local choreographer and dancer isn't afraid to turn to the pop charts when it comes to finding music for her physically charged steps. Her approach makes sense: if using hip-hop, rap, rock, and electronica works for car companies and clothing designers, why shouldn't dancemakers use Billboard burners to reach younger audiences?

"A lot of people [in the dance scene] are against pop music," Barton tells the Georgia Straight in an interview. "I find it's a way for me to make my work accessible to my generation. My generation responds to music. That's how I express myself. I don't think it's cheesy or it's selling out.…I think it's still valid, that there's a place for it. I'll hear a song on the radio and I'll have to stop and listen to it; it helps me formulate ideas."

No wonder, then, that Barton's RISK–which plays July 10 and 11 at the Firehall Arts Centre as part of the Dancing on the Edge festival–is set to tracks you'd hear on the Beat 94.5, mixed here by local DJ Jacob Cino. Just as the MuchMusic generation responds to music, it also likes dance that's as eclectic as it is high-energy. Barton says that dancers themselves are blending genres more instead of confining themselves to one particular form.

"With so much access to information these days, we have access to so many different styles," says Barton, who has studied everything from ballet to contemporary to hip-hop. "So we're really creating a different kind of dancer: a hybrid dancer.…Plus if you only stay with one style, you're going to get bored."

RISK is a 30-minute excerpt from Barton's first full-length work, which will premiere next spring. Barton is an up-and-comer on Vancouver's dance scene: she recently won the Holy Body Tattoo's emerging-choreographer award and is an artist in residence at the Scotiabank Dance Centre. She says RISK has its title for many reasons, one of which pertains to the struggle of 20-somethings to find their place in the world.

"In your mid 20s, there's this whole waiting-room mentality," Barton explains. "I feel like I'm kind of a teenager again: I know who I am…but who am I? I feel like RISK is allowing me to deal with it. In a thematic sense, it's about us. It's a piece for my generation." (The other dancers, all men–Shay Kuebler, Josh Beamish, Josh Martin, and Cameron McKinlay–are in their early 20s.)

Then there is the daring inherent in Barton's full-throttle choreography.

"There's risk in terms of physicality: I'm building a vocabulary that combines an urban aesthetic with contemporary dance, and I like to move really fiercely. We're just going for it," says Barton, who excels at movement so highly charged it verges on dangerous.

"In other parts of my life I'm not a risk taker at all," she adds with a laugh. "This piece is some kind of subconscious expression of what I need to explore."

Barton is just one of dozens of local, national, and international dancers taking part in Dancing on the Edge, which runs July 5 to 14 at various venues. Now in its 19th year, the event has become not just a vital part of the local arts scene but also a summer-festival highlight. It's known for its variety, with full-length productions, mixed programs of short works, and talks with the artists. Given its breadth, the fest is a boon for dance lovers plus a great way for newbies to become more familiar with the art.

Among the fest's other standouts are the Kudelka Project, a tribute to iconic Canadian choreographer James Kudelka by Montreal's Coleman Lemieux & Compagnie (July 6 and 7); Karen Jamieson's Stand Your Ground, a collaboration with residents of the Downtown Eastside (July 9 to 13); Australian company Chunky Move's I Want to Dance Better at Parties (July 13 and 14); and Alvin Erasga Tolentino and Peter Chin's BODYGlass (July 11 to 14). For the full schedule, see www.dancingontheedge.org/.

Some Edge offerings have a theatrical bent, like Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg's Nick and Juanita: Livin' in My Dreams. Friedenberg presented an excerpt from the CanDance commission, which plays the Firehall July 8 and 9, at a recent Dances for a Small Stage, and her solo stole the show. The local artist is one of those hybrids Barton referred to: as physically proficient as she is theatrically expressive (and often hilarious), she has studied both acting and dancing and works alongside a director (Sophie Yendole).

"I'm a dance artist who can't keep my mouth shut," Friedenberg says with a laugh.

Site-specific works are another Dancing on the Edge highlight. Toronto choreographer Denise Fujiwara brings Conference of the Birds to the courtyard of the Chinese Cultural Centre July 7 and 8. The piece for nine dancers is based on the ancient Sufi poem of the same name by Farid Ud-din Attar.

The artistic director of Fujiwara Dance Inventions has done much site-specific work; most recently, she performed Water, a solo (which she'll also perform at the Firehall July 9 and 10), at the National Art Gallery, in a pond in St. John's, and at the waterfall of the B.C. Law Courts. "It's a way of communing with that piece of earth or architecture," Fujiwara says in a phone interview. "I have such a bond with that fountain at the courthouse because I was in it. I danced in it. It's sort of a home to me.

"And the audience is different too. It's not the usual paying crowd but people who accidentally come by. So we have a relationship by chance, and I love that."