Adji Cissoko Headlines the Star-Studded 2023 Vail Dance Festival
This summer, Vail Dance Festival celebrates its 35th year of performances and residencies. Running July 28 through August 7, the 2023 festival features an exciting lineup of performing artists and includes no fewer than 15 principal dancers from American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, Boston Ballet, and more. Alonzo King LINES Ballet artist Adji Cissoko is this year’s artist-in-residence.
BalletX, Martha Graham Dance Company, DanceAspen, and L.A. Dance Project will each return to Vail as performing companies; tap dance and live music group Music From The Sole joins them, making its festival debut. In addition to the performance lineup, Vail’s educational events include 11 hosted conversations and 23 master classes with Cissoko and other festival artists.
Though Cissoko has performed at Vail twice with LINES, this will be her first time at the festival as a solo artist. So to be this year’s artist-in-residence, she tells Pointe, is a huge honor supercharged by excitement and nervousness.
“I don’t think it really started to sink in until people started congratulating me,” she says. “And then I realized how many things I’ll be doing!”
In addition to leading master classes, choreographing a premiere, dancing in a new work by Kyle Abraham, and bringing some of her favorite LINES repertoire to the stage, Cissoko will step out of her contemporary ballet comfort zone by performing two iconic classical pieces: the “White Swan” pas de deux from Swan Lake, and Michel Fokine’s “Dying Swan” solo. But what she most looks forward to is creating and performing a new work in collaboration with her cousin, Youba Cissokho, who plays the kora, a traditional West African string instrument. Cissoko’s family, including her father, has a long history of playing the kora, so she is excited to lean into her family roots and its legacy in Senegal.
As the festival approaches, Cissoko aims to keep an open mind. “I’m allowing myself to go for the experience and enjoy whatever happens, rather than just focusing on the end results,” she says. “I just want a moment where I can look back at everything and feel proud of the whole process, knowing that I enjoyed all of it.”
Check out the full list of individual performers and choreographers attending the 2023 Vail Dance Festival below.
Individual Dancers
- American Ballet Theatre principals Isabella Boylston, Catherine Hurlin, Calvin Royal III, Cory Stearns, Devon Teuscher, and James Whiteside
- New York City Ballet principals Chun Wai Chan, Sara Mearns, Roman Mejia, Mira Nadon, Tiler Peck, and Unity Phelan; soloist Miriam Miller; and corps de ballet members Olivia Bell, India Bradley, Christopher Grant, and KJ Takahashi
- Lil Buck
- Adji Cissoko
- Jeffrey Cirio, Boston Ballet principal
- Patricia Delgado
- Denys Drozdyuk and Antonina Skobina, DNA Ballroom duo
- Philip Duclos, Royal Danish Ballet corps member
- Robbie Fairchild
- Kyle Ikuma and Spencer Lenain, scholars-in-residence
- Lauren Lovette
- Mayfield Myers, Philadelphia Ballet corps member
- Dario Natarelli, tap dancer
- Caili Quan
- Ben Rudisin, National Ballet of Canada principal
- Stephanie Terasaki, freelance artist
- Melissa Toogood
Choreographers
- Kyle Abraham
- Lil Buck
- Adji Cissoko
- Larry Keigwin
- Matthew Neenan
- Justin Peck
- Tiler Peck
- Caili Quan
- Jamar Roberts
- Melissa Toogood
