Spank Dance Company and Refraction Arts are hosting a festival this month celebrating modern dance. Because most of you were probably out at that little music festival last weekend, you might have missed some seriously rockin’ dance performances during opening weekend. Don’t be sad, though, because there are two more weekends in September for you to get your contemporary dance on. Hot September Flurries is a massive collaborative event with involvement from Salvage Vanguard Theatre,......

FRIDAY [12] Some of you have asked that we publish the Weekend IST List on Thursdays, in order to better help you plan your goings-on. We're happy to oblige. Starting today, we'll be including Friday-Sunday listings both on Thursday and Fridays. --Ed. Note music • Yacht Rock Party with DJ Starsign -- Chicago, Steely Dan, America, Air Supply, Toto, Boz Scaggs, Loggins and Messina, Carole King, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Doobie Brothers, Seals and......

When you spend nearly every weekend watching all forms of low-budget, pseudo-experimental performance in barely converted warehouses, you find yourself yearning for shows that are just a little more polished. So, when a new company sprouts up, featuring ballet allstars from around the country, and headed by both a nationally recognized choreographer and composer, your interest is piqued. Enter American Repertory Ensemble. The company’s first production, Dialogues, was part contemporary ballet, part classical music......

Last week, Austin's American Repertory Ensemble (ARE) was in the land of fried Snicker bars, indiscernible drunkards, and the largest fringe performance festival in the world. (Read: Edinburgh, Scotland.) Everything was laughs and lager until the terrorists got involved. After British police arrested 21 people suspected of planning to blow up a dozen planes with liquid explosives, the UK banned all carry-on items. No more laptops. No more zit cream. No more safe passage......

When your roster of artists includes dancers from the Joffrey Ballet, Boston Ballet, Atlanta Ballet and Oregon Ballet Theatre, musicians from the Tosca String Quartet, and two Artistic Directors that are already rising stars in their respective disciplines, your work has to meet some seriously high expectations. After seeing Dialogues, American Repertory Ensemble’s first performance event – a highly professional, intelligent, inventive and entertaining evening of music and dance – we think ARE lives......

FRIDAY [21] [food] Summer Social at the Whole Foods Culinary Center at Whole Foods Market, 525 N Lamar ($15, 5:30-7pm) (link) [music] Appleseed Cast, Criteria, Russian Circles, the Lovely Sparows at Emo's (link) [music] Los Lonely Boys, Shawn Sahm & the Tex Mex Experience at Stubb's (link) [music] Rainer Maria, the Format, Anathallo, Street to Nowhere at the Parish Room (link) (interview) [music] DJ Jester and Lederhosen Lucil at Waterloo Records (link) [music] The Gourds......

From the moment we woke up, something was different. Our fingers delicately tip-toed across our bedside table; we nimbly caressed our oddly rhythmic alarm into silence. Gone was our everyday stumbling stupor as we arose from the bed like a bird on a spring. ‘Twas replaced with physical ease – how nice – as we spun and we twirled, dipping and diving, shuffling gracefully to our morning…pee. (Ahhh.) This is no week in theatre,......

Generally speaking, new dance companies in Austin are formed by a few friends with lofty goals and (roughly) $2.68 from their jobs at [granola coffee shop of your choice]. We’re fans of the grass roots, DIY Austin aesthetic, but we sometimes yearn for some highly polished, über-professional fare. American Repertory Ensemble, led by composer Rob Deemer and choreographer David Justin, may be just what we’ve been looking for. With a new vision for collaboration......