Kaatsbaan Cultural Park Announces 2025 Annual Festival

Kaatsbaan Cultural Park presents the 2025 Annual Festival in Tivoli, NY, from August 30 to September 27, 2025. The 2025 Annual Festival runs each weekend from Labor Day throughout September and includes thoughtful offerings and original performances by artists innovating in dance, music, film, archiving, storytelling, and more, featuring Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, Nichole Canuso, Deborah Hay, Ayodele Casel, Kayla Farrish, Lori Goldston, among others! Festival tickets will be available beginning July 22 at https://kaatsbaan.org/performances-festivals.

Managing Director Naomi Miller says “Kaatsbaan looks forward to presenting a stellar lineup of artists whose works distinctly ground us in the present moment, pose questions, and encourage and ignite our imaginations. This year’s festival has come together from organic conversations with artists and the illuminating work of our Guest Curator, Michèle Steinwald.”

Guest Curator Michèle Steinwald shares, “It is an honor to be in conversation with Hudson Valley arts communities and support Kaatsbaan’s programming while anticipating our gathering this fall. Together, we’ll experience new works by artists who create authentically, and show up with great care and humanity.”

Steinwald continues, “For my first festival, I brought together artists and art forms closest to my heart. From tap dance (my first love) to the wide-ranging influence of choreographer Deborah Hay (the artist who most profoundly impacted my career), these events have been lovingly considered for audiences to settle in and be transported alongside the performers themselves.

I have long admired tap dancer and creator Ayodele Casel from a distance, so to be able to welcome her—and for her to develop new work specifically for Kaatsbaan—is a true honor. Artists such as Nichole Canuso and Lori Goldston—who I have long histories with—are gathering their collaborator dream teams for this festival, effectively raising the vibrations of how we offer artistic experiences with greater resonance and spiritual well-being.

I have had the privilege to previously work with BodyCartography Project, and Bridget Fiske and Joseph Lau of Project Auske, the artistic contributors to the festival’s Performance Lending Library. These free and accessible, self-guided audio experiences invite audience members and groups to explore the stunning natural landscape at Kaatsbaan in new ways, and consider engaging in movement at their own pace and on their own time.

Last year, I was fortunate to be introduced to Kayla Farrish’s work (audiences at Kaatsbaan already know the power of her choreography). While watching Farrish, the immediacy and voracity of her dancing lit me up and brought my being back into focus. The festival’s pairing of Farrish and Casel’s performances (September 19–21), and the deliberate placement of these incredible and necessary artists together is intentional and not to be missed.

We have infused this year’s festival with local favorites, such as the storytelling series The Porch, and international trailblazers, such as New York City’s legendary Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company.

In this important time of global uprisings against unimaginable oppression and violence, I hold Canuso’s beliefs ‘in the strength and power of softness, the bravery of vulnerability, and the healing properties of playfulness’ near. It is through embodying our values and expressing our innermost desires that we continue to fuel this fire of change together.”