Today the Nazareth College Arts Center announced that its annual Dance Festival, which debuted in 2010, will go on a one-year hiatus for 2013. Organizers are looking to "re-imagine" the festival's programming and timing before bringing it back in 2014; the three previous editions took place in July.

In its three previous incarnations the festival has featured big names in the international dance world, including STREB Extreme Action and Martha Graham Dance Company, as well as a variety of local dance troupes that performed on the Nazareth campus and at other venues around town. In addition to ticketed headliner shows, the festival featured open rehearsals, master classes, and free outdoor performances.

The full text of the announcement appears below:

ROCHESTER, N.Y., Friday, January 11, 2013 - Nazareth College Arts Center has announced a one-year hiatus of its annual Dance Festival so that College and Arts Center officials can re-imagine the festival's programming and timing. Originally conceived as a summer event, the newly designed festival will be held during the 2013-2014 academic calendar. The festival will resume in May 2014.

Since the launch of the first Dance Festival, the Nazareth College Department of Theatre Arts has expanded its course offerings in Dance and added a fulltime Assistant Professor of Dance. Moving the annual celebration of dance to May - during the academic calendar - enables the College and the Arts Center to better serve the Nazareth students, faculty, and staff, and to better support the Department of Theatre Arts' growing Dance program.

The 2014 Dance Festival will retain some of the most successful elements of the original version, including main-stage performances, discussions with choreographers and dancers, and master classes. The new timing will also allow continued participation by local and regional companies as part of the popular, free "Dancing on the Grass" programs.

Festival organizers will continue to present programming that encourages audiences and artists to examine the question "What is dance?"