More than 150 alumni of the Bates College Modern Dance Company came from as far away as Japan to take part in a May 1 dance performance marking the company’s 35th anniversary and honoring company founder Marcy Plavin.

In addition to the performance, the dance alumni, along with the Plavin family and friends of dance, offered two lasting and visible thank-yous to this revered Bates mentor: a collective gift of more than $450,000 to fund two new dance studios within Merrill Gymnasium, and an original, mixed-media charcoal drawing of Plavin, based on a photo, that will hang in the studio space.

The studios, to be named after Plavin and scheduled to open in September will be the first home for the dance program, whose rehearsal spaces over four decades have included dorm basements and a variety of gyms.

The Schaeffer Theatre performance on Saturday evening included the current Modern Dance Company performing “Canonic 3/4 Studies,” a piece by acclaimed choreographer Mark Morris, and Alwin Nikolais’ 1953 “Tensile Involvement.” Alumni from as far back as the Class of 1969 danced in both a variety of short pieces and a long suite that constituted the entire second half of the program.

That suite included choreography by two alumni who have made dance their professions: Michael Foley ’89, who is assistant professor of modern dance at the University of South Florida, and John Carrafa ’76, a Tony Award-nominated choreographer acclaimed for his work on the Broadway hits Urinetown and Into the Woods.

The performance was rich in tributes to Plavin, of Lewiston, who started at Bates in 1965 and retires as director of dance this year. Plavin is known at the college as both an early advocate for an expanded role for arts in the curriculum and a close friend and mentor to many of the students who worked with her. Saturday’s event was “almost solely about devotion to Marcy and what she contributed to our experience at Bates,” said dance company veteran Suzanne Carbonneau ’76, who is now a dance critic and dance historian.

This wasn’t the first MDC anniversary for which alumni have trekked back to Lewiston, but was an especially significant one because of the impending retirement of Plavin, who was first hired at Bates by the director of women’s physical education. “Marcy might have been the first adult who wanted me to call her by her first name,” said Geri FitzGerald ’75, now a Bates Trustee, told Bates Magazine in 2000. “In many ways, she was the first adult friend that I had.”

“They’re my extended family,” Plavin says. “We’ve had great times together. Dance seems to build those kinds of friendships.”

During Plavin’s tenure, the dance program has grown dramatically — from two courses in the PE department to a rich slate of academic offerings that students can take as a secondary concentration. In the not-too-distant future, Bates hopes to offer a dance major. Since 1983 the college has been home to the Bates Dance Festival, which Plavin founded and which today ranks in the top tier of such events in the United States.

Plavin will remain a presence at Bates, but succeeding her as head of the dance program is Carol Dilley, who arrived last fall. Dilley’s resume includes teaching at the University of Washington and in a variety of dance programs in Sydney, Australia. She has also run a dance company in Barcelona, and attended the Bates Dance Festival as a student in the early 1990s.

“Carol will do wonderful things,” Plavin says.

For information on making a gift to support the ongoing dance-studio project as well as dance programming at Bates, e-mail Shanna Bruno, Office of College Advancement, or phone 207-786-8254.

Highlights of the performance include “Canonic 3/4 Studies,” a 1982 piece by Mark Morris, one of America’s most respected choreographers, and Alwin Nikolais’ 1953 “Tensile Involvement.” For more information call 207-786-6157. No seat reservations will be accepted.

The Modern Dance Company was founded by Marcy Plavin, of Lewiston, who started at Bates in 1965 and retires as director of dance this year. A program that helped pave the way for the college’s current robust offerings in the arts, including the nationally renowned Bates Dance Festival, Plavin and the company are the object of deep loyalty among its veterans — many of whom will dance on May 1.

“In the midst of this very intensive academic experience, it was incredibly different and open and freeing to have part of our experience be about being creative,” Suzanne Carbonneau told the college’s alumni magazine in 1998. A member of the class of 1976, Carbonneau is a dance critic and historian. “It was always about exposing us to a lot of different stuff and encouraging us to go where our interests were.”

Alumni from classes as far back as the mid-1960s will take part in the May 1 performance. The first half of the program features two pieces danced by current members of the dance company: the Nikolais work, for which the dancers perform with elastic bands stretched across the stage like a giant cat’s cradle, and Morris’s teasing takeoff on traditional ballet, for which obtaining performance rights was something of a coup. “We’re all honored by this great gift,” Plavin says.

Short works danced by alumni constitute the remainder of the first half. The program’s entire second half will be choreographed and danced by alumni, with an opening section choreographed by Michael Foley — class of 1989 and assistant professor of modern dance at the University of South Florida — and a closing by John Carrafa, class of 1976, a Tony Award-nominated choreographer acclaimed for his work on the Broadway hits “Urinetown” and “Into the Woods,” among other credits.

This isn’t the first MDC anniversary for which alumni have trekked back to Lewiston, but it’s an especially significant one because of the impending retirement of Plavin, who was first hired at Bates by the director of women’s physical education. “Marcy might have been the first adult who wanted me to call her by her first name,” Geri FitzGerald, a member of the class of 1975 and a Bates trustee, told the college magazine. “In many ways, she was the first adult friend that I had.”

“They’re my extended family,” Plavin says. “We’ve had great times together. Dance seems to build those kinds of friendships.”

During Plavin’s tenure, the dance program has grown dramatically — from two courses in the PE department to a rich slate of academic offerings that students can take as a secondary concentration. In the not-too-distant future, Bates hopes to offer a dance major. Since 1983 the college has been home to the Bates Dance Festival, which Plavin founded and which today ranks in the top tier of such events in the United States.

Plavin will remain a presence at Bates, but succeeding her as head of the dance program is Carol Dilley, who arrived last fall. Dilley’s resume includes stints on faculty at the University of Washington and in a variety of dance programs in Sydney, Australia. She has also run a dance company in Barcelona, and attended the Bates Dance Festival as a student in the early 1990s.

“Carol will do wonderful things,” Plavin says.

Paula Josa-Jones Performance Works is a Boston-based company of six dancers that has gained a national reputation for risk-taking and adventurous dance theater. Josa-Jones has been called “one of the country’s leading choreographic conceptualists” by The Boston Globe. The Village Voice describes her work as “powerful, eccentric and surreal.” She creates theatrical works that combine rich imagery, virtuosic movement, evocative visual designs and an idiosyncratic use of music.

For the Bates Dance Festival engagement, Josa-Jones presents a new solo and group work, as well as a re-staged version of her acclaimed 1996 work “The Yellow Wallpaper,” a study based on early feminist writings about a young woman’s descent into madness.

Tickets for the performances are priced at $12 and $8 (for full-time students and seniors) and can be purchased at the door or in advance by calling 207-786-6161.

Dance historian and critic Suzanne Carbonneau will deliver a pre-performance talk on Josa-Jones’ work, free and open to the public, at 7:15 p.m. July 29 in Schaeffer Theatre. The lecture is part of educational program of the Bates Dance Festival, “Inside Dance,” which is funded in part by the Maine Humanities Council.

Since 1985, Paula Josa-Jones Performance Works has carried her audiences to the “borders” of gender, sexuality, age, humanness and culture. Josa-Jones has produced more than 30 works of dance theater and created several works for video, often collaborating with visual and media artists. At the core of her work is a fascination with the ways individuals are fed, starved and consumed by habits and relationships. Her work with African dance master Charles Moore and Eiko & Koma helped her develop a form of visually charged dance theater built on the sensuous experience of the body as landscape and source for movement, image and voice.

Paula Josa-Jones has received two consecutive two-year choreography fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). Her teaching work in Mexico from 1993-96 was supported by the NEA United States/Mexico Cultural Exchange Fellowship and Fund for Culture. She is the recipient of two New Forms grants from the New England Foundation for the Arts, and an Artists Foundation Fellowship in Interarts for her video dance collaborations with Vin Grabill.

The company has received commissions from the Joyce Theater and Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors in New York, Jacob’s Pillow and Dance Umbrella in Massachusetts, and the Flynn Theater in Vermont.

As a master teacher whose classes focus on composition, improvisation and the integration of voice and movement, Josa-Jones has taught in the dance program at Tufts University, and in the opera department at Boston University. She has been in residence at Performance Space 122 (New York), Dance Umbrella (London and Boston), Yellow Springs Institute (Philadelphia) and Tangents, Inc. (Montreal).

In addition to its critically acclaimed mainstage performance series of 17 concerts, the festival offers two intensive training programs, one for adults and one for younger dancers. For more information, or to request a brochure, call the Bates Dance Festival at 207-786-6381.

The Bates Dance Festival receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New England Foundation for the Arts, the Maine Humanities Council, the Maine Arts Commission, Harkness Foundations for Dance, Capezio Ballet Makers Dance Foundation, the Bingham Betterment Fund, G.G. Monks Foundation, the Shapiro Family Foundation, the Sequoia Foundation, Tom’s of Maine, LEF Foundation, L.L. Bean, Portland Newspapers, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Androscoggin Savings Bank, Mechanics Savings Bank, Liberty Mutual Insurance and People’s Heritage Bank.

A lively evening of rhythm artistry, HOT FEET will feature jazz tapper Herbin van Cayseele, currently astounding audiences in Riverdance; Maine tapper Drika Overton; acclaimed French step dancer Benoit Bourque of Montreal; STOMP star and Irish step dancer, Sean Curran; and Madrid-based flamenco master, Clara Ramona. Festival musicians will provide live music for this concert.

The combination of talent, diversity of style and cultural tradition and sheer energy that these five dancers bring to the stage offers an unprecedented evening of percussive dance. Tickets for the performances are $14 and $8 (for full-time students and seniors) and can be purchased at the door or in advance by calling 207-786-6161.

Suzanne Carbonneau, historian and dance critic for The Washington Post, will discuss The Resurgence of Percussive Dance, in a lecture at 8 p.m Aug. 4, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St. The public is invited to attend free of charge.

Carbonneau will explore the history of percussive dance, from its African roots to contemporary dance forms, and its current widespread popularity, as evidenced by such dance/musical theater productions as STOMP, Riverdance, Tap Dogs and Bring in da Noise, Bring in da Funk.

Jazz tap and hip-hop are truly American forms, developed on the streets and brought to creative heights by African-American performers, such as sensation Rennie Harris, whose company PureMovement is also performing in the Bates Dance Festival concert series this summer.

A dancer who comes out of a tap tradition, Herbin van Cayseele is cognizant of the hip-hop vocabulary and energy. The HOT FEET concert will continue to raise the public’s consciousness of jazz tap’s place in African and American history, and link this dance form to the driving, percussive rhythms of traditional French and Irish step dancing, further enlivened by the flamenco artistry of Clara Ramona.

In an effort to develop new audiences for contemporary dance, the festival will provide HOT FEET ticket subsidies for youth and community members participating in the Youth Arts Program and the Community Dance Project, and to various social service agencies for at-risk teens. The ticket subsidy is underwritten in part by the Maine Arts Commission. HOT FEET is sponsored by L.L. Bean, Inc.

Herbin van Cayseele presents a contemporary, improvisation style of tap blending hip-hop, funk and the traditional jazz idioms of bebop and swing. Currently, he is a featured dancer with the rhythmic sensation Riverdance. He was one of the featured performers in Dance Umbrella’s Fascinating Rhythms: A Celebration of Jazz Tap, a 14-city tour in 1993. Born in Guyana, he studied ethnic and Latin dance before moving to Europe at age eight, where he studied tap dance and Afro-Brazilian dance at the American Center in Paris. In addition, he was a featured dancer, vocalist and percussionist on the European tour of Mr. Thing and Professional Human Being. Van Cayseele is founder and producer of Urban Tap, a new concept in tap dance, which combines the varied rhythms of Africa, Brazil, India and American traditional jazz.

Musician and dancer Benoit Bourque has delighted audiences for 23 years with his choreographed performances of Quebec’s traditional dances. He has toured all over North America, appearing in festivals, schools and music camps, and he is the founder of Le Carrefour Mondial De L’Accordeon, an international accordion festival. From 1990-95, Benoit was the artistic director of Les Eclusiers de Lachine, a folkdance group that has gained international acclaim, and in 1996 he joined the new French folk music ensemble Advielle Que Pourra, touring with them all over Canada and the United States. Bourque is the recipient of grants from the Maine Arts Commission, Catamount Arts for Touring in Vermont, the Portland Performing Arts’ House Island Project and “Ragoout d’pattes de cochon,” in collaboration with choreographer Ann Carlson. He currently tours with Montreal musician and vocalist Gaston Bernard.

Sean Curran has made his mark on the international dance world as principal dancer with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company. He received a New York dance and performance Bessie Award for his work in Secret Pastures and is currently performing in the off-Broadway show STOMP. Curran’s own choreography and performance work has been presented in New York at the Joyce Theatre, Dance Theatre Workshop and DIA. He teaches at colleges and universities around the country. In Europe, Curran has performed at the Scottish Edinburgh Festival and Denmark’s Aarhus Festival.

Clara Ramona is a principal dancer, choreographer and director of Spanish and modern dance in various U.S. and Spanish companies, such as The Dance Collective, Mandala Folk Ensemble, Ramon de los Reyes Spanish Dance Theatre and Boston Ballet. In 1994 she created her own company, the Ballet Espa–ol de Clara Ramona. As a ctor, Clara has collaborated with the Boston Conservatory of Music (where she earned a B.F.A. in music, choreography, teaching and technique), the Walnut Hill School for the Performing Arts and the dance program at Boston University. Her numerous choreographic creations have included ballets such as Capricho Espa–ol by Korsakov, Bolero by Ravel, and Sonata in F by Soler.

Maine’s own tap and percussive dancer Drika Overton created the Portsmouth Percussive Dance Festival in 1995 to celebrate the rich traditions of the American art of jazz tap and its connection to the music and percussive dances of many cultures. The co-founder of the jazz tap ensemble Stop Time, the Classical Tap Trio and Suite: Feet, she is a recipient of an individual artist fellowship from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts. Overton has studied extensively with such notable tap legends as Jimmy Slyde, Honi Coles and Eddie Brown, as well as body musician Keith Terry and rhythm dancer Kimi Okada. She currently teaches at the University of New Hampshire and the Leon Collins Studio in Boston.

In addition to its critically acclaimed mainstage performance series of 17 concerts, the festival offers two intensive training programs, one for adults and one for younger dancers. For more information, or to request a brochure, call the Bates Dance Festival at 207-786-6381.

David Dorfman returns to Maine with three dynamic and entertaining new works combining text, live music and athletic dancing, including “Gone Right Back,” a richly layered piece made and performed in collaboration with musicians Elaine Buckholtz and Shannon McGuire; “Job,” a hilarious duet with David Dorfman and longtime friend and collaborator, musician Dan Froot; and “Sky Down,” a purely physical piece set to funky music by Amy Denio. Tickets for the performances are priced at $14 and $8 (for full-time students and seniors) and can be purchased at the door or in advance by calling 207-786 6161.

A pre-performance lecture focused on Dorfman’s work will be given by Washington Post dance critic Suzanne Carbonneau at 7:15 p.m. Aug. 2, in Schaeffer Theatre. Free and open to the public, the lecture is part of a Bates Dance Festival educational program, “Inside Dance”, funded in part by the Maine Humanities Council.

First premiered at the Joyce Theater in New York in February 1997, Dorfman’s latest work received critical acclaim. According to Jennifer Dunning, dance critic for The New York Times, these recent pieces “suggest Mr. Dorfman has come of age as a major modern dance creator.”

The program centerpiece, “Gone Right Back,” with dancers Jeanine Durning, Tom Thayer and Curt Haworth, is a continuous stream of movement and talk that turns the traditional duet on its head. Dorfman explored the creation of “Gone Right Back” during previous teaching residencies at the American Dance and Bates Dance festivals. The daring piece “Job” suggests friends from school days and deals surrealistically with love, respect, admiration and trust, while the fragmented duets in “Sky Down” are more purely physical.

Among the festival’s extensive roster of artists, Dorfman is one of its most popular performers and frequently requested instructors. A Chicago native, Dorfman is a musician and athlete who became a dancer after earning a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Washington University.

He is the recipient of two New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships, the first Paul Taylor fellowship from the Yard and four fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. Dorfman’s choreography has been produced in New York by The Joyce Theater, Dance Theater Workshop, The Kitchen and Dancing in the Streets. His project “Familiar Movements” (The Family Project) won a 1996 New York Dance and Performance Award for outstanding choreographic achievement.

One of the company’s best known works involving local volunteer athletes, “Out of Season” (The Athlete’s Project, 1994), blurred the line between sports and dance and challenged the audience’s perceptions of who should and should not dance on stage. Since its founding in 1985, David Dorfman Dance has performed extensively in New York and throughout North and South America, Great Britain and Europe.

In addition to its critically acclaimed mainstage performance series of 17 concerts, the festival offers two intensive training programs, one for adults and one for younger dancers. For more information, or to request a brochure, call the Bates Dance Festival at 207-786-6381.

Support for this New England Dance Project concert is provided by the New England Foundation for the Arts, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Maine Arts Commission.

Tickets are $14/$8 (students and seniors) and may be purchased by calling 207-786-6161. A pre-performance lecture focused on Harris’ work will be given by Washington Post dance critic Suzanne Carbonneau at 7:15 p.m. July 26, in Schaeffer Theatre. Free and open to the public, the lecture is part an educational program of the Bates Dance Festival, Inside Dance, funded in part by the Maine Humanities Council.

Rennie Harris PureMovement bridges the disparate worlds of street and theater in a synthesis of drama and dance-defying categorization. Blending African retentions with American improvisations, the company displays remarkable technique. The Philadelphia-based choreographer uses the various forms of hip-hop as a vehicle for tough messages about racism, street shootings and prison. Closely related to the complex and driving rhythms of “street” music, the company’s dance style challenges and uplifts as dancers tumble, spin, intertwine and hurl their bodies through space.

In “Fallen Crumbs from the Cake,” the opening piece in the Bates Dance Festival, Harris blends experiences from his own residency in a Pennsylvania prison with projections, film, funk music and monologues. Harris’ solo performance “Endangered Species” offers a powerful lament about molestation, while the final work, “Students of the Asphalt Jungle,” is “virtuosity,” according to The Boston Globe, inspired by Harris’ travels in Africa. According to Harris, the piece is: “an affirmation of our African-American heritage through movement, which we believe has been handed down through spirit and instinct.”

Critics consider Rennie Harris a visionary pioneer in the evolution of hip-hop dance and well-versed in the vernacular of popping, step, break and house dance and other styles that have emerged spontaneously from the black community. “Harris bridges the usually disparate worlds of street and theater, self-empowerment and artistic inspiration. He is an exceptional artist,” The San Diego Inquirer said.

Self-taught, Harris has designed his own unique moves since he was eight years old. He and his group PureMovement have performed with Run DMC, Curtis Blow, and LL Cool J, and were featured in videos such as Ricky Scaggs’ “Country Boy.”

The recipient of many distinctive awards, Harris has received a Philadelphia Repertory Dance Initiative grant from the Pew Charitable Trust, a 1996 Pew fellowship in choreography and a 1996 Dance Projects Commission made possible by the Rockefeller Foundation.

In addition to its critically acclaimed mainstage performance series of 17 concerts, the festival offers two intensive training programs, one for adults and one for younger dancers. For more information, or to request a brochure, call the Bates Dance Festival at 207-786-6381.

The Bates Dance Festival receives support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New England Foundation for the Arts, the Maine Humanities Council, the Maine Arts Commission, Harkness Foundations for Dance, Capezio Ballet Makers Dance Foundation, the Bingham Betterment Fund, G.G. Monks Foundation, the Shapiro Family Foundation, the Sequoia Foundation, Tom’s of Maine, LEF Foundation, L.L. Bean, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Portland Newspapers, Androscoggin Savings Bank  and People’s Heritage Bank.