The Bates Dance Festival, celebrating its 22nd season of producing contemporary dance, presents hoi polloi in concert at 8 p.m. Saturday, July 17, in Schaeffer Theatre, College Street. A discussion with the artists immediately follows the concert.

Tickets are $15 for general admission and $10 for students and seniors and may be purchased by calling the festival box office at 207-786-6381.

Founded in 1997, hoi polloi has become one of Boston’s hottest contemporary dance companies. Choreographer/director Sara Sweet Rabidoux refers to her work as “dances made from scratch” but they are hardly thrown together. Full of madcap humor, Rabidoux’s finely crafted gems reflect the view of a new generation of dancemakers. Mining contemporary culture for its meaning and its madness, hoi polloi serves up devilish hilarity infused with little musings on life’s darker side.

Boston Herald dance critic Theodore Bale calls Rabidoux “Boston’s most fearless and cinematic choreographer. She continues to send us menacing postcards from the deepest recesses of her dazzling imagination, and they’re progressively more astounding.”

“In her dances, Rabidoux tells stories of lives as they are being experienced by the next generation,” says dance scholar and critic Suzanne Carbonneau ’76. “Her choreography is smart, sassy, madcap and poignant…I have no doubt Rabidoux has the potential to make a real impact on American dance.” The company’s performance and residency are made possible in part by the New England Foundation for the Arts as part of the National Endowment for the Arts Regional Touring Program.

In addition to its main stage performance series of 15 concerts, the Bates Dance Festival offers two intensive training programs, one for adults and one for younger dancers. For more information, or to request a brochure, contact the festival at 207-786-6381; this dancefest@bates.edu; or visit the website.

Seven dances are featured in From Far and Near. Two are by students. “So Many Ways to Where” was choreographed by Sara Miller, a senior from Farmington, to music by Ani DiFranco. “Transport” was choreographed by Devon Fitchett, a senior from Woburn, Mass., to music by Shamou, a percussionist born in Iran, living in Portland and a veteran of collaborations with such dance companies as Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Mark Morris Dance Group.

All for 15 or more dancers, the guest choreographers’ works are: “Ellington Suite,” by Stephanie Powell, with music by Duke Ellington; “Changing Winds,” by Lisa Schmidt, to music by Wendy Carlos and La Llorona; “Muse of Fire,” by Ben Munisteri, with music from the Run Lola Run film soundtrack; “Almanac,” by Sara Sweet Rabidoux; and “The 8:10 Express,” by Cathy Young, with music by a number of classic jazz artists.

Stephanie Powell has choreographed for numerous companies, colleges and universities throughout the East and Midwest and currently teaches at the Baltimore School for the Arts and Towson University. She is artistic director of the Stephanie Powell Danse Ensemble, the Glory to God Arts Ministry, and In the Spirit Dance Ministry. Powell is a director of the Baltimore Dance Tech Inc. Dance Center, which has a comprehensive dance program with more than 100 students.

Lisa Schmidt was a member of the Trisha Brown Company from 1985 to 1992 and has taught and performed throughout the United States and abroad. In addition to performing, this resident of western Massachusetts teaches dance and healing through movement. She is a certified practitioner of body-mind centering.

Ben Munisteri is a New York City-based choreographer whose ensemble performs regularly in New York, at festivals and at other venues around the country. He has created dances for Pennsylvania Dance Theater, Danceworks Performance Company (Milwaukee), and many college companies. He recently received two consecutive major grants from the Jerome Foundation for the creation of new works.

Sara Sweet Rabidoux is the founder and artistic director of Boston-based dance company hoi polloi. She has taught at the Bates Dance Festival’s Youth Arts Program since 1995 and has been a guest artist at a variety of colleges and universities. Hoi polloi has danced for the Bates Dance Festival, Jacob’s Pillow, the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, the Flynn Theater and The Philly Fringe Festival.

Cathy Young, artistic director of Cathy Young Dance, works in an eclectic mix of styles drawing on jazz, modern, contact improvisation, gymnastics and social dance. She has set her pieces on professional companies and universities around the country, and has presented her duet work with husband Chris Aiken in New York and elsewhere. A nationally recognized teacher, she is currently visiting lecturer in dance at the University of Illinois, where she is pursuing her master’s degree.

For more information about this performance, call the box office at 207-786-6161.

With student performances of music and drama and a recital by Maine’s best-known pianist in store, the days before Thanksgiving have a lot to offer in the arts at Bates College.

The Robinson Players, one of the oldest student theater companies in the nation, offer their second David Ives piece for the autumn: All In The Timing, a collection of absurdist one-acts playing at 7 p.m. Nov. 15-17 in the Benjamin Mays Center.

Meanwhile, the Department of Theater and Rhetoric offers Sex and Death, an evening of three one-acts written by Diana Amsterdam and directed by students in Professor of Theater Paul Kuritz’s directing class, at 7 p.m. in the Gannett Theater Nov. 19 and 21, and Dec. 5-6.

In addition, the dance department offers a showcase performance of work by Boston choreographer Sara Sweet Rabidoux in Chase Lounge at 7 p.m. Nov. 15.

At 8 p.m. Nov. 15-16 in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, the Bates College Choir sings a cantata from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and Mozart’s Solemn Vespers of the Confessor with orchestral accompaniment.

Frank Glazer, a resident artist at Bates and a pianist of international renown, performs music by Schumann, Beethoven, Debussy and Liszt at 8 p.m. Nov. 20, also in Olin.

Finally, in the visual arts, a Purdue University professor of art, design and women’s studies offers a lecture at 4:10 p.m. Nov. 15 in Skelton Lounge. Pheobe Farris will survey contemporary female Native American artists.

The play’s the thing when it comes to November’s public arts and entertainment events at Bates College. Two productions are planned by the college’s theater program (as well as two by the dance program), and there are two by the student theatrical troupe, the Robinson Players. Other performance highlights for November include two concerts by artist-in-residence Frank Glazer, a pianist of international stature. The month also holds a reading by Camden’s own Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, Richard Russo.

The Robinson Players, one of the oldest student theater companies in the nation, continue an ambitious year with two November productions. David Ives wrote All In The Timing, a collection of absurdist one-acts (Nov. 15-17). Also this month the “Rob Players” present Love Changes Everything, an original cabaret of popular love songs from such Broadway hits as West Side Story, South Pacific and My Fair Lady (Nov. 8-9).

Meanwhile, the Department of Theater and Rhetoric at Bates has its own fish to fry. Professor Paul Kuritz directs Oscar Wilde’s sparkling comedy of manners, Lady Windermere’s Fan, at the Gannett Theater through Nov. 10 (read more about it here). Starting later in the month (Nov. 19 and 21, Dec. 5-6) is Sex and Death, a collection of one-acts written by Diana Amsterdam and directed by students in Kuritz’s directing class.

Finally, students in the department’s dance program offer a showcase performance of work by visiting choreographer Sara Sweet Rabidoux on Nov. 15.

On the music front, Glazer is joined on Nov. 9 by his New England Piano Quartette colleague Curtis Macomber for a program of Beethoven violin sonatas. On the 20th, it’s just Glazer with music by Schumann, Beethoven, Debussy and Liszt.

On Nov. 15-16, the Bates College Choir sings a cantata from Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and Mozart’s Solemn Vespers of the Confessor with orchestral accompaniment.

In literature, Russo, who won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in fiction for his novel Empire Falls, reads from his work on Nov. 14. This Annual Writers Harvest event is sponsored by Bates and the national anti-hunger organization SOS.

Another compelling event in the humanities is a talk on Nov. 11 by Marcus Borg, best-selling author and a professor of religion and culture at Oregon University. His talk is likely to be an attention-getter: The Bible: Instrument of Oppression or Liberation?

In the visual arts, in addition to a lecture by Maine landscapist Joel Babb on Nov. 7, two lectures concern Native American artists: Alyssa Hinton, who uses mixed media to explore the folklore and history surrounding her Native American roots and has the exhibit Spiritual Archaeology at Bates, talks about her work on Nov. 10; and Pheobe Farris, a Purdue University professor of art, design and women’s studies, offers a survey of contemporary female Native American artists on the 15th.

The season celebrates the diversity and creativity of contemporary dance with performances featuring postmodern, jazz, improvisation and flamenco by acclaimed U. S. companies and established and emerging choreographers from around the world. Recognized throughout the contemporary dance community for its outstanding performance series, the Bates Dance Festival, located on the Bates College campus, features critically acclaimed new works by Jane Comfort and Company, Robert Moses’ KIN, Eiko & Koma, Simone Forti and Lisa Race Dance, as well as performances by emerging choreographers Sara Sweet Rabidoux, Gesel Mason, Ming Lung Yang, Helanius Wilkins and others.

In addition to its main stage performance series of 13 concerts, the festival offers two intensive training programs, one for adults and one for younger dancers. For more information about the festival schedule, phone the Bates Dance Festival at 207-786-6381, email the festival at this dancefest@bates.edu or visit the festival Web site at http://www.batesdancefestival.org/.