The Vancouver International Dance Festival has just announced its lineup for March 1 to 24, 2018, and it includes Canadian premieres by two New York City contemporary companies: Shen Wei Dance Arts and White Wave Dance.

Shen Wei Dance Arts will hit the Vancouver Playhouse stage on March 2 and 3 with Folding, a dreamscape set to Tibetan Buddhist chanting and John Tavener's music, and The Rite of Spring, an abstract interpretation of a two-piano version of Stravinsky’s iconic score that plays with the idea of physical calligraphy.

Meanwhile, the Big Apple's White Wave Dance Company brings iyouuswe to the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre. Company artistic Young Soon Kim has set it on nine dancers, and—look at the title carefully—it explores how we interrelate through her finely crafted and detailed-yet-loose choreography (March 14 to 17).

The festival opens with local talent Amber Funk Barton, of the response, premiering her new full-length solo VAST on March 1 to 3 at the Scotiabank Dance Centre.

At the Roundhouse, Mexico's Compañía de Danza Experimental de Lola Lince presents the Canadian premiere of Estudios y Fragmentos Sobre el Sueño (Studies and Fragments on Dreams), a meditation on light and dark, day and night, and wakefulness and sleep (March 23 and 24).

March 8 to 10, VIDF presents three highlights from EDAM artistic director Peter Bingham's career: Hindsight, Sinking SuZi, and Engage the Feeling Arms.

March 20 to 22, Montreal's Lucie Grégoire Danse presents its cinematic and sensual Les choses dernières, a work inspired by Paul Auster’s novel In the Country of Last Things.

Vancouver's Dancers Dancing, The Biting School, and the Goh Ballet, as well as Hungary's Ferenc Fehér, all feature on the exhibition hall stage at the Roundhouse.

And Vancouver's pataSola will take to the KW Studio stage on March 22 to 24, with RIFT—a mix of flamenco and butoh "with archetype, myth, and legend in response to global femicide".

The festival is coproduced by Kokoro Dance's Barbara Bourget and Jay Hirabayashi each year.

Tickets and event details are at vidf.ca; note the company has a special holiday sale November 27 to December 22, offering 20 percent off tickets.