Dancing from coast to coast...

Each summer, company members have the option to join a partially subsidized week-long retreat in a location of great natural beauty (selected by the participants) to create site-specific work. Dance camp participants live and eat together, rehearse and explore together, for a week of fun, bonding, and creativity.

NCDE dance camp originated in June 2022, when we gathered in Southwest Harbor, Maine, to create a rainbow dance of love and togetherness on a lawn (sloped, increasing the challenge!) overlooking Somes Sound. Love You More was performed on-site for a small audience as part of a very special wedding ceremony — and a new NCDE tradition was born.

In July 2023, dance camp took place in Alma, Colorado, where we adapted to high-altitude dancing and compiled video footage in different locations, interacting with specific spaces both natural and human-made. The result is Altitude : Latitude, with a score composed for the piece by Mike Coffin.

August 2024 took us to Rio del Mar, California, where we worked on beach- and ocean-related material for Aqua | Terra. Watch our short film, where land and water meet, which shows some moments of play during the process. Dancing on shifting sands turns out to be a great workout for foot strength and stability, too!

We returned to Rio del Mar in July 2025 and created the site-specific film Migrations, using different parts of the beach environment as we considered all those, human and animal, fish and fowl, who journey across the seas.

In August 2026, we'll head to Marin County, California, and look forward to discovering what we can develop there!