ATLAND SUMMER DANCE FEST / JULY 7-12, 2026

Registration opens Jan 2026

Join us in the beautiful Berkshire Hills and train with renowned West Coast-based dance artists Abby Crain and Gizeh Muñiz. During the festival, there will be two workshops a day, with free time to enjoy hiking, swimming in the pool or river, hot tub and campfire hangs, as well as residency time to work on your creative projects/collaborations. On the land and in the studio, you will have opportunities to rehearse, get feedback, and show your live work and/or films. Come train with other professional artists in Western Massachusetts this summer.

SPECIAL NOTE: We have 7 work-exchange positions for artists who would like to join our Trail Crew and help work on our trail system & garden. Trail Crew gets free meals (worth $200). Trail Crew folks must arrive early to Atland on July 6th and work with us in the afternoon of July 6th and the morning/afternoon of July 7th. If interested, please check “yes” on the registration form when asked to join trail crew… open to the first 7 who register.

T U I T I O N + M E A L S + H O U S I N G

Tuition for the week: $400-$450 sliding scale (deposit and tuition are non-refundable)

Meals for the week: $200 (if you sign up for our Trail Crew work-exchange then meals are free for the week. See info above or email us with questions)

Housing options @Atland for the week: $150-$300 (tiered options include: 6 private bedrooms, 1 cabin, 3 shared rooms (2 ppl per room), 2 glamping spots, and 7 camping platforms on our trails). One of the houses includes a pool! Participants are welcome to find their own housing and/or meals and only pay the tuition fee, preferably only those who live nearby as we encourage everyone to lodge and eat meals with us.

A P P L I C A T I O N

Open to the first 25 participants who register and pay a non-refundable deposit. REGISTRATION OPENS JAN 2026

D A T E S

Tues. July 7 - Sun. July 12

Arrival on the 7th anytime between 4-6pm. When you arrive, we’ll do orientation at 6:30, and the first dinner and meet & greet session is from 7pm-9pm. Departure is Sunday after the morning movement session. The full and updated schedule will be sent to participants prior to arrival.

D A I L Y S C H E D U L E

BREAKFAST @ATLAND chef-prepared and communal style at the Atland main house

MORNING SESSIONS @THAYER HILL STUDIO W/ GIZEH MUÑIZ (10AM-12PM) The studio where we will gather for movement sessions will be the gorgeous and spacious Thayer Hill studio, just a few minutes up the road from Atland. Gizeh will lead the morning sessions and Abby will lead the afternoon sessions.

LUNCH @ATLAND chef-prepared and communal style on the dance deck or inside the Atland main house

RESIDENCY STUDIO/LAND TIME OR OPTIONAL SWIM BREAK @THE BEND Afternoons are left open for rest, socializing, and exploring rural western Massachusetts’ hiking trails and beautiful swimming holes. There is one swimming hole a short walk away, another one with a community beach a bike ride away. And there’s a pool this year! The studio and dance deck are also open for rehearsals. We’ll have a sign out sheet.

​AFTERNOON SESSIONS @THAYER HILL STUDIO W/ ABBY CRAIN (3PM-5PM) The studio where we will gather for movement sessions will be at the gorgeous and spacious Thayer Hill studio, just a few minutes up the road from Atland. Abby will lead the afternoon sessions and Gizeh will lead the morning sessions.

DINNER @ATLAND chef-prepared and communal style on the dance deck or inside the Atland main house

​EVENING SESSIONS Evenings will include informal performances, a dance film screening night on the dance deck (bring work that you would like to share!), fire hangs, and/or socialize at the local Sena Farm Brewery, Liston’s or The Goldenrod. Personal time for rest and integration may be taken whenever needed. On some of the evenings there will be a showing of works-in-progress by the teachers and participants (optional).

TEACHING ARTIST BIOS & WORKSHOP DESCRIPTIONS

  • Abby Crain is an Oakland, California based artist who makes dances and other structures for performance. She additionally works in the field as a teacher, performer, writer, and curator. Her solo and collaborative work has been presented in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Liverpool, Chicago, Cork, Berlin, Portland and Los Angeles. She teaches annually at the FRESH festival in San Francisco, the Drop Your City Armor Retreat in Dos Rios California with Sara Shelton Mann, Ponderosa Tanzland in Stolzenhagen Germany, and has additionally taught in New York City through Movement Research. She is currently on adjunct Faculty at Mills College. As a performer, she has worked with Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People (2001-2009), Sara Shelton Mann (1999- present), and has has also worked with Jesse Hewit, Guillermo Gomez Peña, Jess Curtis Gravity, Kathleen Hermesdorf, KJ Holmes, Nancy Stark Smith, and David Dorfman Dance. Her writing and interviews have been published by Itch Performance Journal (LA), PAPER FRONT (Portland), Critical Correspondence (NYC), and the Off Center (SF). Her curatorial projects include the NO THANK YOU SHOW, which asked artists to represent or stage work that has been rejected by granting organizations, theaters, collaborators, or the artist herself, the NON MAJOR SHOW, which asked artists to show work was not in their primary medium, as well as being on the curatorial panel of the FRESH festival. Her work is influenced by an ongoing polymorphous teaching and research project with Margit Galanter called Art Workouts, and a collaborative dialog around language and performances with Oakland poet, David Buuck. She was certified by Stephanie Skura to teach Open Source Forms in 2014. Her work has been nominated for a Bay Area Izzie four times.

    (photo of artist by Robbie Sweeny)

  • coming soon…

  • They are a movement, teaching and performing artist who is Mexicana, currently co-existing in Ohlone territory. Their choreographic and teaching work has been shared in the United States, Mexico and Europe in festivals such as Improspeckje in Croatia, GUSH in San Francisco and 4×4 in Tijuana, to mention some. gizeh has had artist residencies at CounterPulse, PUSH, BANDALOOP, The Community Engagement Residency with Bridge Live Arts, and the 2023-25 Radiate fellow of RAWdance. gizeh is curator and producer of KH FRESH Festival, Performance Primers and Gatherings class series in the Bay Area. Their dance lineage follows performing in the work of Kathleen Hermesdorf and Sara Shelton Mann. Their teaching is influenced by their studies in somatic and Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy as well as ten years in Mexico, with teachers Ángel Arámbula, Briseida López, Octavio Dagnino, Ilse Meza and Humberto Vega, among many others Mexican artists.

    (photo of artist by Marian Himburg)

  • This is a dynamic floorwerk technique workshop that invites dancers to move from their fluid body. It focuses on the somatic process of learning (or remembering) and embodying movement, which allows us to not only train the body for aesthetic and performative purposes, but for building neural pathways that can help us expand our awareness of space, time, and connection to the land. Through breath, warmth, stillness and movement, this workshop explores a rigorous and buoyant physicality that embraces pleasure and tenderness, through phrases, somatic practices and improvisation. This workshop is ideal for all curious bodies that are interested in deepening their movement practice beyond form. Open to all levels.