Summer in the dance world means festivals, fun and experimentation. It’s a season to see spectacular ballet dancers who usually grace the opera house stage up close in a small venue (ahem, don’t miss former San Francisco Ballet principal Benjamin Freemantle’s return with SFDanceworks). It’s also the time to survey the leading edge of dance from across the country at ODC Theater’s State of Play Festival.

From tour-de-force flamenco to sports-inspired romps, there’s no lack of energy or boldness this summer in Bay Area dance.

Fact/SF

Charles Slender-White’s cheeky dance company and progressive presenting organization is busy this summer. The overarching creative project here is “Queer Athletic Futurity,” Slender-White’s exploration of queer people in sports. It launches in early June with “Fluid Forms,” a free outdoor dance for 11 to be performed at the Presidio Tunnel Tops park.

Then, “Fantastic Field Day” will offer inclusive games for all skill levels and ages led by Fog Rugby and Cheer S.F., as well as a halftime show and a potluck gathering. Finally, “Half Time, Full Out” is to premiere as part of the Fact/SF Summer Dance Festival in August. It’s a dance for six that Slender-White promises will contain “our take on competitive games, virtuosic routines and entertaining divertissements” to “imagine what a queer sports environment might look like.”

“Fluid Forms” offers free 30-minute performances on the hour from noon to 3 p.m. Sunday, June 4; noon and 1 p.m. June 11. Presidio Tunnel Tops Park, 210 Lincoln Blvd., S.F. More information on “Fantastic Field Day,” including date and time, can be obtained by emailing jblaska@factsf.org.•Fact/SF Summer Dance Festival shared bill with Shaun Keylock Company: Friday-Sunday, Aug. 18-20. ODC Theater, 3153 17th St., S.F. Ticket information TBA.https://factsf.org/qafandhttps://factsf.org/summer-dance-festival

San Francisco International Arts Festival

The festival, which has presented artists from 57 countries since its founding by Andrew Wood in 2003, moves to the Mission District this year and focuses on Bay Area groups in its dance lineup.

Diamano Coura West African Dance Company, Ensambles Ballet Folklorico de San Francisco, Nash Baroque and Dance through Time, and Pinata Dance Collective are all slated to present full-evening shows. The festival also offers two shared dance bills — one featuring modern dance from Jessica Fudim and Steamroller Dance Company, the other pairing two Indian dance groups, Abhinaya Dance Company and Samudra Dance Creations.

6月仅在不同任务地区场馆,旧金山那里$20-28. Full schedule athttps://www.sfiaf.org/dance_sfiaf2023

Fresh Meat Festival

Transgender choreographer Sean Dorsey founded the Fresh Meat Festival in 2002, looking to fully honor the “T” in LGBTQ. After three years of online events due to COVID-19, the community-driven fest is back in person with a full-site takeover of the Mission’s Z Space that will situate performers in the venue’s nooks and crannies as smaller groups of audience members tour through, as well as presenting some acts on the main stage.

Featuring six world premiere commissions and bringing multidisciplinary artists from Seattle, Portland and New York, the festival also showcases Bay Area dance groups such as aerial company Bandaloop and Afro Puerto Rican bomba ensemble Taller Bombalele.

7:30 p.m. June 14-17; 2 p.m. June 17-18. $15-$40. Z Space, 450 Florida St., S.F.https://freshmeatproductions.org/2023-fresh-meat-festival

Dohee Lee and Manose Singh

Born on Jeju Island, Korea, Oakland-based Dohee Lee is trained in shamanistic singing, drumming and dancing practices, and is a frequent collaborator with postmodern dance innovators like Anna Halprin and inkBoat. Lee’s newest performance is “MU-Connector,” an exploration of ancestral traces incorporating electronic soundscapes, an altar installation and performances by the Storytellers, a Bhutanese refugees collective working with Nepalese musician and composer Manose Singh.

7 p.m. June 23. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum, 701 Mission St., S.F. $20-$40.https://ybca.org/event/dohee-lee-mu-connector

SFDanceworks

In its second season under the leadership of former San Francisco Ballet soloist Dana Genshaft, SFDanceworks continues to mix classic modern dance works with big names in contemporary choreography, while giving emerging choreographers space, too.

Pam Tanowitz, a rigorous experimentalist boasting commissions by American Ballet Theatre, Martha Graham Dance Company and the Royal Ballet, will have a world premiere on this program. Also on the bill are excerpts from “Danzas Mexicanas,” a 1939 masterpiece by modern dance giant Jose Limon, a premiere by new choreographer (and former Lines Ballet star) Laura O’Malley, and premieres by Brian Arias and Alexander Anderson.

This year’s SFDanceworks performers include Benjamin Freemantle, an exuberant and technically dazzling former S.F. Ballet principal. It’s a rare treat to see these dancers up close in the small space of ODC Theater.

Ticketed preview 7 p.m. June 29, excluding “Danzas Mexicanas.” Full program 7 p.m. June 30; 2 and 7 p.m. July 1; 2 p.m. July 2, ODC Theater, 3153 17thSt., S.F. $30-$100. 415-863-9834. odcdance.org/calendar

拉塔尼亚佰乐弗拉门戈

Flamenco star La Tania was a fixture of the Bay Area dance scene for three decades, until losing her San Francisco studio and home to the forces of gentrification. Now living in Spain, she’s working with the theme of displacement in her new “Solaz.”

多媒体作品的灵感来自于历史的the Temple of Debod, which was built in Egypt in the second century B.C., slated to be flooded in the 1960s for the construction of the Aswan Dam, and then rescued and reconstructed in Madrid. Dancers Melissa Cruz, Cristina Hall and Mizuho Sato join La Tania onstage, with composer and guitarist José Luis de la Paz, singer José Cortés and oud player Gary Haggerty.

7 p.m. July 21-22; 4 p.m. Sunday, July 23. Presidio Theatre, 99 Moraga Ave., S.F. $15-$45.www.presidiotheatre.org

Ballet22

A company for male-identifying dancers in pointe shoes (but not necessarily in drag), Ballet22 emerged from the pandemic as a collaboration between executive director Theresa Knudson and artistic director and dancer Roberto Vega Ortiz.

Ortiz has moved on, but the tremendously appealing company he and Knudson built continues under her leadership, with an ambitious program. Highlights include excerpts from “Sleeping Beauty,” a company premiere by Idaho-based Lydia Sakolsky-Basquill, and a world premiere by Thang Duo, a rising choreographer who recently completed a commission for Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. The performers include Ashton Edwards, a member of Pacific Northwest Ballet, and Daniel R. Durrett from Boston Ballet.

8 p.m. July 28-29. Z Space, 450 Florida St., S.F. Ticket information TBA.www.ballet22.com

Amy Seiwert’s Imagery: ‘Sketch 13’

Amy Seiwert, recently named associate artistic director of Smuin Ballet, leads this excellent pickup troupe of dancers. For the 13th season of the “Sketch” series,” they present newly made ballets with the intention of taking artistic risk.

A big name on the lineup this year: Trey McIntyre, the prolific and nationally lauded choreographer whose work Bay Area audiences know from ballets he choreographed for San Francisco Ballet and Smuin. Imagery artistic fellow Natasha Adorlee, rising Canadian choreographer Hélène Simoneau and Seiwert herself will also share fresh works. Fittingly, this year’s theme of “Lucky” gives the choreographers a mandate to experiment with an element of chance. (Think: Merce Cunningham rolling the dice to determine the order of his dance phrases.)

7:30 p.m. July 28-29; 3 p.m. June 30. ODC Theater, 3153 17th St., S.F. $13-$65. 415-549-8534.https://www.asimagery.org/sketch-13

San Francisco Ballet’s ‘Starry Nights’

For a third annual summer, San Francisco Ballet plans to bring audience favorites to the idyllic, picnic-friendly Frost Amphitheater for alfresco performances with live music. This year’s programming in partnership with Stanford Live includes two hits from last winter’s new works festival, next@90: “Violin Concerto,” a futuristic romp through Stravinsky’s violin concerto, by Yuri Possokhov; and “Madcap,” a macabre portrayal of one clown’s existentially tortured life, by Danielle Rowe.

7:30 p.m. Aug. 3-4. Frost Amphitheater, 351 Lasuen St., Stanford. $40-$250. 650-724-2464.www.sfballet.org/productions/stanford-live-starry-nights

ODC Theater State of Play Festival

Last year, ODC Theater reinvented its summer dance festival as a freewheeling mix of works in progress, premieres and audience participation — and it worked.

This year, guest curators Maurya Kerr and Leyya Mona Tawil have grouped the dance artists into “Experimenters” (Audrey Johnson, Gizeh Muniz Vengel, Indira Allegra, Pateldanceworks), “Curious Creators” (Ajani Brannum, Baye&Asa, Dandy and Jerron Herman), and “Risk-Takers” (Kensaku Shinohara, Marissa Brown, Tableau Stations and Yaniro Castro). These creators hail from the Bay Area, New York, Seattle, Los Angeles and beyond, making the festival a heady way to get a taste of what’s happening on the edge of experimental dance around the country.

Aug 3-13. ODC Theater, 3153 17th St., S.F. Passes $150-$300. Individual show tickets $15-$100, no one turned away for lack of funds.https://odc.dance/stateofplay

Rachel Howard is a freelance writer.