All the right moves An abundance of local and international treasures BY JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ

This fall’s opportunities to see dance are so varied that it would be hard to choose what to take in if they conflicted with each other. But, most fortunately, they don’t. So see them all! Companies from New York, Cambridge, and Mexico will make appearances, and resident companies will present a bit of everything from contemporary ballet (Festival Ballet Providence) through modern dance infused with hip-hop (Fusionworks Dance Company) to multi-media dance theatre (Everett Dance Theatre).

Perhaps the most varied performance experience within the context of one company will be Island Moving Co.’s second "Open for Dancing" event on September 25 and 26. The title stems not only from IMC’s inclusion of community members in the pieces, but from the wide-open spaces in which these dances will be set: Queen Anne Square in the heart of Newport; the ramparts of Fort Adams; the oceanfront lawn at Doris Duke’s estate, Rough Point; and the Sod Maze at Chateau-sur-Mer.

Island Moving Co. dancer and choreographer Michael Bolger will create a piece for the parishioners of Trinity Church and others on the green expanse of Queen Anne Square that will take place several times during the day on Sunday, September 26 (until 2 p.m.). On Saturday, September 25, Dante Del Giudice, Rhode Island College’s director of dance, will present spontaneous and unannounced performances, as "The Phantom Limb," throughout downtown Newport.

On Saturday and Sunday, at 3, 4, and 5 p.m., the dances made for Fort Adams, Rough Point, and Chateau-sur-Mer will be presented, with audience members trolleying to the three locations (trolleys leave from the Gateway Center in Newport). At Fort Adams, New York choreographer Noemie Lafrance will create a piece for IMC dancers and community participants. Lafrance is the winner of two Bessie Awards for the choreography and score of Descent (2003), a piece for dancers descending a staircase, and her latest work, Noir, was staged in a downtown parking garage last spring as part of the Whitney Museum’s Biennial.

Boston choreographer Daniel McCusker returns to Newport to choreograph a piece for the Sod Maze at Chateau-sur-Mer. The Maze was constructed by Providence artist Richard Fleishner as part of the 1974 sculpture show "Monumenta," and McCusker’s dance will celebrate the Maze’s 30th anniversary. He will work with dancers from the community and Rhode Island sculptor Elizabeth Keithline. McCusker shared his thoughts about the Newport site: "The maze has certainly presented images of physical connection — thread-like, chain-like connections between people. It also presents images of walking and of ritual. Because the dances will be performed by a variety of people, they will be very democratic. In our current divisive political climate it is a pleasure to participate in something that is so inclusive."

Jim Coleman and Terese Freedman, co-directors of Freedman/Coleman Dance Company and currently artists-in-residence and professors of dance at Mount Holyoke College, will bring their choreographic vision to the spectacular site at Rough Point. Coleman confided: "We’ve arrived at a dreamy collage of a piece, including dance action which opens up and enlivens the bigger spaces, woven with characters from the imagined daydreams of an aging Doris [Duke] figure." He hopes that audiences will be "haunted by a more intimate imagining of what it might have been like to inhabit — to live a life in — such a house, surrounded by these grounds and the immense ocean." For more information about "Open for Dancing," call (401) 847-4470 or go to www.newportarts. org.

Another newly-commissioned dance will be performed by Festival Ballet Providence October 22 through 24. The Widow’s Broom, based on a story by Chris Van Allsburg, will be choreographed by Boston-based Viktor Plotnikov, who created last season’s acclaimed Carmen. Tony Award-winning designer Eugene Lee and composer Aleksandra Vrebalov will collaborate with Van Allsburg and Plotnikov. The story concerns a worn-out broom that has been put to good use by a widow until her neighbors decide that the broom is bewitched and dangerous. Festival’s fall season also includes two "Up Close, On Hope" studio performances, featuring short works by local choreographers (September 25, 26, and October 2, and November 13, 14, and 20); and the annual production of The Nutcracker, December 10 through 12 at the Providence Performing Arts Center and December 17 and 18, at the Zeiterion Theater in New Bedford, Massachusetts. For more info, call (401) 353-1129.

Fusionworks Dance Company will present its fall concert November 19 and 20 in Sapinsley Hall at Rhode Island College. Titled "Soaring," the program will reprise Deb Meunier’s Mozart piece, Vesperae, with soloist Mary Manning, from the spring concert, and it will premier two new works by Meunier — Connected I, dealing with the connectedness of all living things, and Connected II, looking at the intimacy between two people. The latter pair will have original music by Ron Schmitt and Michael DeQuattro.

Another new piece by Meunier, in collaboration with Brooke Young from Phase II (formerly Dance Planet), will be Tom, You Naughty, Naughty Boy, danced to Tom Jones Reloaded, with a generous dose of hip-hop woven through Meunier’s modern and jazz styles. Company member Paige Parks will bring back her bluesy solo piece, set to the music of Seal. And company member Stephanie Stanford’s Just a Few, described as "meditations on happiness," will be performed by the junior company, Fusionworks II. One of the two performances of "Soaring" will be "unwrapped," that is, Meunier will say a few words about each piece before it is performed. For more info, call (401) 334-3091.

Everett Dance Theatre always takes a year or more to put together their multi-media shows. Each of them has won acclaim with the New York critics — one, Body of Work, garnered them a Bessie in 1996. Their newest work, Home Movies, premiered two weeks ago and it continues at the Carriage House on September 24 and 25, October 1, and 2. Home Movies is a rare piece of theater that draws you in, stirs you up, and spits you back out to think about your own life. Catch this award-winning company right in our own backyard. Call (401) 831-9479 for tickets.

As part of FirstWorksProv Festival’s Urban Carnevale, Providence choreographer and performance artist Paula Hunter will present the thought-provoking piece Extinct, based on issues of biological dependence on October 9. Hunter will perform in the window of the Tilden-Thurber Building on Westminster Street. Also Hunter’s junior company Jump! will do their annual dance adaptation of Scenes from The Polar Express on December 4 and 5. For more information, call (401) 751-0366.

Two residencies at Rhode Island College by New-York based choreographers will result in performances with the Rhode Island College Dancers. The first program on October 29 will feature a new piece by Andrea E. Woods, a former dancer and rehearsal director with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, which she set on the RIC dancers; and a dance by Souloworks, a Brooklyn-based modern dance company. Both Woods and Souloworks celebrate African-American culture, drawing on themes of family, nature, community, and spirituality.

The second residency will be on December 3 with the duet company Nugent+Matteson, who are Jennifer Nugent and Paul Matteson. They collaborate on duets and work on solo choreography; their energy has been described as "explosive and contagious." They will create a piece for the RIC dancers and present their own work. Call (401) 456-8144.

Coming to Li’l Rhody’s home turf this fall are several companies that have wowed audiences around the country. The first, at the University of Rhode Island’s Fine Arts Center on September 27, is the Cambridge-based, seven-member Snappy Dance Theatre, a collaborative ensemble that weaves together the diverse backgrounds of its members (dance, circus performing, theater, martial arts, gymnastics, and puppetry) to form captivating pieces. The company’s gravity-defying technique, the thought-provoking dynamic of their images, and their ability to tickle your funny bone combine to give you their definition of snappy: "imaginative, sculptural, poetic, ironically absurd, very funny." Call (401) 874-2627 for more information.

In a rare Rhode Island appearance, Pilobolus Dance Theatre brings its high-energy blend of gymnastics and dance movement to the VMA Arts & Cultural Cente on October 2 as part of the debut of FirstWorks Prov Festival (an offshoot of the former First Night Providence). Like the unstoppable fungus for which it was named, Pilobolus grew out of a student class at Dartmouth in 1971 to an internationally-known dance company and educational institute. Pilobolus has been one of this country’s most influential dance companies because they broke most of the rules and made their own. For this performance, they will present their version of the Romeo and Juliet legend, Star-Cross’d, complete with stunning aerials, and the New England premiere of Megawatt, which they describe as "a full-tilt, full-throttle, full-company piece, blending startling energy with multi-body elements that scoot, zip, flip, and zoom." With the pulsing rhythms of Primus, Radiohead, and Squarepusher behind them and with images blasted across three screens surrounding them, this piece is sure to be a stunner. For tickets, go to www.tickets.com or call (401) 421-4ART.

Delfos, a contemporary dance company based in Mexico, will perform a half-dozen original pieces at Rhode Island College’s Roberts Hall on October 22. These dances have been created "from a process of self-examination" in order to "convey the intimacy of the art form," according to its founders, Victor Manuel Ruiz and Claudia Lavista. "Delfos," they explain, "provides an incandescent structure" in which its dancers may "discover their own oracles, dreams and truths." Founded in 1992, this seven-member company stresses experimentation and innovation in their work, always coming back to the idea that art comes from within the individual.

Another New York-based group coming to the Rhode Island College is Tap City (November 13). This tap revue grew out of the New York City Tap Festival, put together in the summer of 2001, and has toured each year since then. Three generations of hoofers join forces for an evening of rhythm and romp, to music as diverse as Chinese flute, Bela Fleck, and Duke Ellington. There are tribute pieces to Leon Collins and the late Gregory Hines, plus a finale with all the tappers doing the "shim sham shimmy." Info for both Delfos and Tap City at (401) 456-8144.

Begun in 1974 as a handpicked ensemble from Alvin Ailey’s own Ailey School, Ailey II is a dynamic company of young dancers whose energy and enthusiasm wows audiences. They’ll come to the newly-renovated Stadium Theatre in Woonsocket for one performance on October 30. Since this junior company began 30 years ago, more than 50 Ailey II members have been selected to join the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and many others have gone on to become dancers, teachers, and choreographers with other companies. Ailey II’s repertory includes pieces by dance masters Alvin Ailey, Talley Beatty, Ulysses Dove, Lar Lubovitch, and Judith Jamison and newer choreographers such as Robert Battle, Donald Byrd, Shapiro & Smith, Avila/Weeks, and Kevin Wynn. Call (401) 762-4545 for ticket info.

At the Providence Performing Arts Center this fall, one dance special and one musical with a special dance will appear: Oklahoma (November 12 through 14) and Lord of the Dance (November 16 through 18). Oklahoma is the touring production of Cameron Mackintosh’s revival of this groundbreaking Rodgers and Hammerstein gem. The oft-lauded 20-minute ballet in the second act has been restaged with a terrific twist: the actors do the dancing themselves, instead of stand-in dancers, as in the ’50s version. Lord of the Dance is the Michael Flatley spinoff of the Irish dance sensation Riverdance. Filled with many of the same mesmerizing rhythms, high kicks, and quick twirls, Lord of the Dance builds its numbers around a mythical Irish story of good triumphing over evil.