Buglisi Dance Theatre's 'Sand' / Photo by Kristin Lodoen Linder

Performances take place in two choice Lower Manhattan venues. Over the weekend, audiences can settle in on the lawn at Battery Park for a three-hour smorgasbord of dance. From Monday through Friday, the generous two-hour noon performances at the open, welcoming One New York Plaza may require an extended lunch break for those stopping by during their workday.

Aficionados of Indian dance forms have made interesting and happy discoveries at DDF in recent years. This year, with support from the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, the curatorial committee selected Guru Radha Mohanan & Troupe, which was highly recommended by authorities on Indian dance. Radha Mohanan is a master of Kathakali, the highly stylized classical form of Indian dance theater known for its elaborate costumes and make-up, and is the founding director of the Kalari Institute in New Delhi, which is dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of Indian classical dance forms. His company of dancers and musicians performs on the Sunday mixed bill, and offers a full program of its own on Tuesday, presented as part of the Indo-American Arts Council’s Erasing Borders Festival of Indian Dance.

Battery Dance Company recently performed in Sendai during a Japanese tour, and its presentation of Takahashi’s modern-dance troupe represents a happy cultural exchange—and marks the first appearance by a Japanese troupe at DDF. BDC Founder and Artistic Director Jonathan Hollander was still on tour in Kobe last week when he responded to interview questions by email. Still excited about the audience of more than 1,000 people that attended BDC’s Sendai performance and the workshops his company offered there, he described Takahashi’s choreography: “The work is very powerful, passionate and the dancers are virtuoso modern dancers. The influence might be Graham and Taylor, but I think there is some influence of Japanese traditions as well as Pina Bausch. At the same time, there is a quirkiness, a childlike freedom in some of the movement vocabulary that I find very fresh and engaging.”

The festival’s eclectic mix of more than a dozen local troupes offers a chance to catch up with the work of choreographers who have brief seasons that are sometimes hard to catch up with. These range from the Martha Graham-inspired work of Buglisi Dance Theatre and Blakely White-McGuire (a stellar Graham company member who will present a duet she choreographed) to Creative Outlet Dance Theatre of Brooklyn; from Lori Bellilove and the Isadora Duncan Dance Company to Battery Dance Company itself.

While he has passed the DDF coordinating duties on to Sarah Dell’Orto, Hollander remains a guiding figure for the festival, and knows the many variables and complexities of presenting a full week of outdoor dance performances. “No matter how many difficulties we have had to endure, there is something very important to us about bringing the art form we love to our home community in Lower Manhattan. BDC celebrates its 35th anniversary this year and we started on the bricks and piers of Lower Manhattan all those years ago. We are happy to be able to give other companies the opportunity that we have enjoyed ourselves and to share with our downtown audience the wealth and variety of dance from NYC and around the world.”

Downtown Dance Festival

Aug. 14 & 15, The Lawn at Battery Park (at Pearl St.); 1. Aug. 16–20, One New York Plaza (corner of Water & Whitehall Sts.); 2, Free.