The Wake Forest Dance Festival is a free, family-friendly, daylong event on Sept. 30 from 10 a.m. – 7 p.m. featuring professional dancers at E. Carroll Joyner Park, 701 Harris Road, Wake Forest.

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 will feature national and regional professional dancers, as well as local rising advanced dance performers.

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.

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 dance 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 event will 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.

Visit the event’s website www.WakeForestDanceFestival.org and Facebook page www.facebook.com/WakeForestDance for more information on the event.