Ottawa’s Dorsale Dance, Halifax’s Mocean Dance, Toronto’s Adelheid Dance Projects, Victoria’s Constance Cooke, Montreal’s Frédérick Gravel and Étienne Lepage: the 28th annual Dancing on the Edge festival (July 7 to 16) has clearly solidified its coast-to-coast reputation.

“Across Canada there’s very much a knowledge of the Edge and a connection to the Edge,” agrees festival director Donna Spencer, speaking to the Straight over the phone from the Firehall Arts Centre, where the event is based, adding that many of the artists in the aforementioned companies have come here before in other pieces and roles.

Aside from its national representation, this year’s Dancing on the Edge features a whopping seven mixed Edge programs, featuring names like Alexis Fletcher (of Ballet BC), Meredith Kalaman, OURO Collective, Ziyian Kwan, and Josh Beamish. “We have more Edge programs this year than we have in the past, and it’s because I’m kind of like a kid in a candy store. Like, ‘How many of these can I make work?’” Spencer says with a laugh. “Plus people love the Edges because it gives them a chance to see a lot of work.”

Amid that extensive Edge programming are a lot of works in progress. Wen Wei Dance, Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg, Amber Funk Barton, and Out Innerspace are all planning to develop larger, full-evening premieres out of their excerpts here.

And herein lies another growing, integral role for the Edge as it nears its 30th year. “I think there’s an important aspect of developing work that the festival can do. People can get a sense of the audience response and shape it, not unlike workshopping a play,” Spencer explains.

The fest has also established its offsite programming as Edge Off, this year with two offerings: MascallDance's new The Outliner: an evening of solos, which creates a fantastical white world with sculptural costumes in its home studio at St. Paul's (1130 Jevis Street) and gifted emerging talents Julianne Chapple and Thoenn Glover presenting new work at the Scotiabank Dance Centre. 

Dancing on the Edge also continues its tradition of performances in unexpected, site-specific spots, including Aeriosa's gravity-defying new Pseudotsuga--Earth to Sky in Stanley Park and All Bodies Dance Project's En Route, a piece that explores navigating through a crowd, in the SFU Woodwards Inner Courtyard.

But most importantly, Dancing on the Edge still takes its main job as simply encouraging risk-taking, ushering the art form to the edge of what it can be. For example, Spencer points out that more than a few works this year, like Gravel’s Thus Spoke..., integrate text or theatre in bold new ways.

“We have lots of dance festivals in Vancouver now, and our role is to continue to push the form and question the form and support the artists to be able to do that,” Spencer says.

All info and a full schedule are here.