RAD Event Descriptions
Admission to these events is free
Panel Discussion: Trends in Dance Panel with 2026 RADFest Adjudicators
March 6th | 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. | Black Arts and Cultural Center
New this season, Trends in Dance brings together the 2026 RAD adjudication panel—Halie Bahr (MN/UT), Mike Esperanza (MI/NY), Mandy Herrick (WI), and Amy Wilson (MI)—for an in-person conversation held at the Black Arts and Cultural Center and broadcast live online. Adjudicators will share observations and themes emerging across the field and through this year’s adjudication process, offering insight into both the evaluative lens and the larger contemporary dance landscape.
Registration is required for both in-person and online attendance. Online attendees will receive a Zoom link after registering.
WEdances Movement Collaborative (Viroqua, WI) — presents Still/Awake (excerpt)
March 6th | 4:30-6 p.m. | Bates Alley
WEdances Movement Collaborative is a site-responsive, improvisation based dance trio that performs everywhere but the stage.
Still/Awake illuminates the body's relationship with forgotten spaces, plastic waste and the inevitability of human connection. Dancers create a landscape through movement, found-object ambient sound, text, voice and plastic wrap, lids, shovels and toys. Still/Awake questions how humans care for one another in a plastic filled world and how we deal with this awakening for generations to come.
Presented as part of RADFest in conjunction with Art Hop which is produced by the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo, RADFest events will take place in multiple locations around the Epic Center in downtown Kalamazoo and include live performances and film screenings.
Registration is encouraged.
Midday Creative Exchange: A Tribute to Martha Graham Dance Company’s 100th Anniversary in Movement, Music, and Words
March 7th | 12:15-1:15 p.m | Judy Jolliffe Theatre
Dancing Martha: A Tribute to the Martha Graham Dance Company’s 100th Anniversary in Movement, Music, and Words is an informative and engaging lecture-demonstration presented by Crooked Tree Arts Center School of Ballet under the guest direction of former Martha Graham Dance Company Principal Dancer Peter Sparling. The program features two of Graham’s most iconic works, Lamentation (1930) and Appalachian Spring (1944), offering audiences a rare opportunity to experience these masterworks through performance, context, and conversation.
A true radical of her time, Martha Graham transformed American modern dance by inventing a powerful new movement language to express profound, timeless, and universal truths of the human condition. Through biographical insight, behind-the-scenes perspectives on Graham’s creative process, and the embodied act of “dancing Martha,” Sparling and the dancers illuminate Graham’s enduring legacy and continued relevance.
Credits
Project Director / Narrator: Peter Sparling
Artistic Director, Crooked Tree School of Ballet: Heather Raue
Dancers: Crooked Tree Arts Center School of Ballet with alumni guests Marie Millard and Benjamin Cheney
Registration is required.
Community Dance and Drumming Jam
March 7th | 3-4 p.m. | Kalamazoo Institute of Arts
Join RADFest, hosted by Wellspring, for a Community Dance and Music Improvisation Jam.
This movement and music celebration welcomes everyone—whether you consider yourself a dancer or not—to explore movement through open improvisation scores with live music, or simply observe and enjoy the magic of dancing and drumming. The session will feature movement facilitation by RADFest faculty and live music by The Druid Drummer.
Carolyn Pampalone Rabbers - CPR Dance: Inhale Movement: Carolyn Pampalone Rabbers - CPR Dance: Inhale Movement is the Executive Artistic Director and founder of CPR Dance: Inhale Movement in Southwest Michigan. She received her MFA at the University of the Arts and graduated as the Presidential Scholar with a BFA from Western Michigan University. Carolyn is an Instructional Assistant Professor at Texas A&M University, on faculty at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, and has taught at Grand Valley State University and Western Michigan University. She can be seen as ‘Abby’ in Moondance (2020) and has performed for Wellspring/Cori Terry & Dancers, Coldplay, Omi, Starbucks, Jockey Bra, Kaplan University, Royal Caribbean Cruises, Celebrity Cruises, Diavolo EdCo, Mariana Olivera, Clairobscur, LACDC, Nickerson-Rossi Dance, and Vox Lumiere.
About The Druid Drummer:
An unorthodox solo percussion act from Kalamazoo, The Druid Drummer creates primal soundscapes that serve as self-expression and as a call to the audience’s own inner rhythm. His performances have been described as “the human spirit embodied as sound.”
Registration is encouraged.
Coffee Talk with Peter Sparling and Cori Terry
March 8th | 10-11 a.m. | Black Arts and Cultural Center
Join us for an informal and engaging Coffee Talk with two influential figures in American modern dance: Peter Sparling, former Principal Dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company, and Cori Terry, longtime member of the Erick Hawkins Dance Company and Founder and former Artistic Director of Wellspring/Cori Terry & Dancers. This mediated coffee-hour conversation offers a welcoming space for shared reflection on dance history, artistic lineage, creative process, and the evolving role of dance in our communities.
Patrons, RAD artists, community members, dance students, arts organizations, and all who are curious about dance are invited to attend—whether to actively participate in the discussion or simply listen and learn. Coffee and light breakfast items will be provided.
Registration is encouraged.
Biographies
Peter Sparling is the Rudolf Arnheim Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Dance and Arthur F. Thurnau Professor Emeritus of Dance at the University of Michigan. A graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy and The Juilliard School, he danced with the José Limón Dance Company and served as a principal dancer with the Martha Graham Dance Company. As Graham’s assistant, he coached Rudolf Nureyev and collaborated with her on numerous new works. Sparling has performed, staged, and written extensively about Graham’s repertory worldwide and has appeared multiple times on PBS Dance in America. His wide-ranging career includes roles as artistic director, choreographer, educator, video artist, writer, administrator, and activist, with his screendance and visual art presented internationally. Since retiring from the University of Michigan, he continues to create dance films and paintings and remains active as a collaborator and cultural advocate.
Cori Terry, Founder and Artistic Director of Wellspring/Cori Terry & Dancers for 43 years, was born in Brooklyn and trained in New York City after attending the State University of New York at Stony Brook. After 2 years of apprenticing, she joined the Erick Hawkins Dance Company in 1974, performing and teaching throughout the United States and Europe. In 1980, Terry came to Kalamazoo as artist-in-residence at Western Michigan University and soon after founded Wellspring/Cori Terry & Dancers. She has choreographed close to 100 works for Wellspring through the years, collaborating with The Kalamazoo Symphony, Fontana Chamber Arts, the Red Sea Pedestrians, The Gilmore Piano Festival, Cavani String Quartet, Eighth Blackbird, Bill Ryan and The New Music Ensemble, and ZOFO, to name a few. Now one of the nation’s longest-standing small professional modern dance companies, Wellspring has played a vital role in the Kalamazoo arts community for over four decades, advancing modern and postmodern dance, fostering collaborations, and introducing generations of audiences to the power of movement.
Director’s Circle: Lunch and Dialogue with Kate Yancho
March 8th | 11:45 a.m.-12:45 p.m. | Black Arts and Cultural Center
Director’s Circle: Lunch & Dialogue is an informal gathering focused on dance education directors and artistic directors, offering space for conversation, connection, and shared inquiry around leadership, pedagogy, and artistic practice. Join colleagues for a thoughtful midday exchange centered on the evolving landscape of dance education and performance. A catered box lunch will be available for purchase.
Kate Yancho was named the Education for the Arts Administrator for Kalamazoo Regional Educational Service Agency (KRESA) in 2025, after serving as Executive Director of Wellspring since 2016. She received a BFA in Dance Performance from Kent State University in 2005, then took a turn in a new direction and embarked on a career as a higher education administrator for over 10 years. After receiving her MA in Higher Education and Student Affairs from The Ohio State University in 2008, she began working for Kalamazoo College as the Assistant Director of Student Involvement. While at the College, Kate advised the student dance company, Frelon, taught dance classes in the physical education department, and choreographed musicals for the theatre department. Kate is a 2019 graduate of the OnePlace Nonprofit Leader Academy.
Registration is encouraged.