The Rochester International Jazz Festival - which wrapped its ninth edition last month - has become the pride and joy of Rochester. The community embraced it from the beginning and helped it become a roaring success. Is Rochester ready to open its heart to another performing-arts festival? Especially - gulp! - a dance festival? Nazareth College President Daan Braveman thinks so.

"Two of the Rochester region's greatest assets are the excellence of its arts organizations and the sophistication of its audiences," Braveman said at a press conference this spring. "We are known for our festivals - like the lilac and the jazz festivals. Nazareth College has presented world-class dance to the area for decades. The Nazareth College Arts Center Dance Festival continues in that tradition and will become the next great festival in Rochester, the ultimate dance destination in the Great Lakes region," he said.

This week that prediction will be put to the test when the festival makes its debut on the Arts Center stage, and at many other venues around Rochester, featuring some incredible local and national dance talent.

The nearest dance festival of note is the venerable Jacob's Pillow in Beckett, Massachusetts, founded by Ted Shawn in 1933. The Pillow is known internationally for the high caliber of its participating companies, its open-air performance spaces, and the fact that audiences have access to open rehearsals. Nazareth College Arts Spokesperson Rachel DeGuzman cites Jacob's Pillow as a model for the college's new endeavor.

The festival opens Saturday, July 10, and runs through the July 17, and will feature free and ticketed performances by award-winning international dance companies and recognized regional companies. Even though the festival is in its infancy this year, organizers expect to attract at least 8000 visitors, 25 percent of them from outside the greater Rochester area. Over $200,000 has been poured into the festival so far, with Nazareth College as the chief investor, in addition to a host of sponsors.

Nazareth College Arts Center has been nurturing plans for the festival since 2007. The completion of its state-of-the-arts performance center last fall literally set the stage to realize the plans.

It should prove worth the wait. This year's inaugural festival features diverse dance groups, lots of free, outdoor performances (only three of the festival's events require tickets), workshops for dancers, and seminars with some big names debating the festival's theme, "What is Dance?"

The sheer volume of the dance being presented this week will surely do much to widen the public's perception of the art form. Many, if not most, of the dance companies from the Greater Rochester area are taking part in the festival. You can catch Futurpointe Dance, the promising new company led by Guy Thorne, formerly of Garth Fagan, performing outside Starry Nights on University Avenue Saturday morning, or the Bharata School of Indian Dance and Music at the outdoor stage on the Nazareth campus Sunday evening.

The festival will officially open Saturday morning on the "jewel box" steps outside the Memorial Art Gallery. Guest company Inlet Dance Theatre, out of Cleveland, Ohio, will perform an excerpt from its celebrated work "BALListic" before teaching the audience steps for an informal dance walk down University Avenue's Art Walk.

"We want to signal to the community that this dance festival is for them, not just a Nazareth event," DeGuzman says.

Ten-year-old Inlet Dance is known for breaking through the traditional barrier between audience and performer, just as founder and Artistic Director Bill Wade, formerly of Pilobolus, is adept at deconstructing his choreography to adapt to the audience, the performance space, and the objectives of the presenters.

You may recognize some of the Inlet dancers from their corporate work - with Levi's in the Go Forth campaign, and at the recent Lexus Auto /Lexus Style Show. Wade will lead a workshop later in the week for choreographers of small dance companies, providing guidance on diversifying income by securing that type of special-event work. A whopping 75 percent of Inlet Dance's income is earned - an unprecedented achievement for a dance company.

The festival's headliner is STREB Extreme Action Company, a Brooklyn-based troupe led by Penfield native Elizabeth Streb, who has not been dubbed the Evel Knievel of dance for nothing. Her daredevil choreography, which she calls "PopAction," will certainly stoke the fire when it comes to defining dance.

Streb's work intertwines elements of dance, athletics, boxing, rodeo, Hollywood stunt-work, and the circus. Now that's experimental. Except that Streb has been doing it for more than 15 years, and amassing extraordinary acclaim along the way. She is the winner of a MacArthur Foundation Genius Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Brandeis Creative Arts Award, and two Bessie Awards.

Garth Fagan, artistic director and founder of Garth Fagan Dance, Tony-winning choreographer for "The Lion King," and Rochester's own dance genius, was generous with his praise of Streb when he spoke to City on the phone last week.

"I have the utmost respect for Elizabeth," he says. "Long before there was Cirque Du Soleil with its level of gymnastics and athleticism, she had done this with dance, and continues to do it."

In fact, when Cirque du Soleil celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2004, the troupe invited STREB to perform with it in front of a crowd of 250,000 on the streets of Montreal. STREB also opened the Cultural Olympiad 2010 in Vancouver, which was organized to coincide with the winter games.

"Hers is a particular variant on the family tree of dance. The average dancer can't do what the STREB dancers can do - their centering, their strength....their courage," Fagan says.

Streb calls the eight members of her company "extreme action heroes" because of the super-human feats of movement they are able to execute. Indeed, watching them walk down walls, freefall through space, and vault off of each other readily brings flashbacks to Saturday-morning cartoons watched in your pajamas while consuming sugary cereals. If you're looking to get your own, over-active youngsters into some form of creative movement, this might just be your ticket. Take them to the open rehearsal of STREB in Callahan Theater on Thursday for a glimpse into the domain of these super humans. And don't worry about underage attention spans; stay for as little or long as you like.

STREB is also offering a week-long, morning workshop with company members for 12- to 15-year-olds. There are no requirements besides general physical capabilities, but space is limited. These dancers will perform together for the public on Saturday, July 17.

For Streb herself, the festival engagement is a homecoming. "When we got called to participate in this dance festival and come home to Rochester with my work at this level, it was one of the most exciting gigs we've gotten in a long time, on par with the winter Olympics in Vancouver," the feisty, spiky-haired 60-year-old said in a video interview for the Dance Festival earlier this year.

"The theme of the festival - ‘What is dance?' - is very, very dear to my heart. Something I've been talking about and asking fundamental questions about for a long time," she said.

Streb will debate the perimeters of dance with Fagan when the two face off Thursday evening in a choreographer's panel. According to the same interview, Streb welcomes the chance for dialogue with Fagan, one of her heroes.

"What the heck is this field we're all in?" she asked in the video. "We need to have a bunch of fights about that question. One of my favorite things is to stir up a particular kind of controversy."

Certainly, audiences will be forced to re-examine their own concepts of dance when STREB and the company's 15 tons of equipment - including the Whizzing Gizmo, a giant wheel in which dancers ride its force until they are "spit" out - take to the stage. This weekend, Streb's company will premiere a new form she has been developing, a form that is all about the action that she refers to as "a movical."

Nazareth College Arts Center Dance Festival

Saturday, July 10-Saturday, July 17

Nazareth College Arts Center, 4245 East Ave. (and other locations)

389-2170, go.naz.edu/dancefest

Festival Schedule

*All events free, unless otherwise noted.*

SATURDAY, JULY 10

11 a.m.: Dance Festival Opening Ceremony Dance Walk at ARTWalk, featuring Inlet Dance Theatre. (Rain space Village Gate)

7 p.m.: Inlet Dance Theatre Pre-Performance Talk Nazareth College Arts Center Room A-14.

8 p.m.: Inlet Dance Theatre Performance Nazareth College Arts Center Callahan Theater. ($20-$30)

9:30 p.m.: Post-Performance Party Nazareth College Arts Center Wegman Family Sculpture Garden. ($15; rain space Shults Center Forum)

SUNDAY, JULY July 11

1 p.m.: Inlet Dance Strolling Performance Schoen Place, Pittsford. (Rain space Eastview Mall)

5 p.m.: Dancing on the Grass I Community dance performances featuring Elizabeth Clark Dance Ensemble, Park Avenue Dance Company, Bharata School of Indian Dance & Music, Borinquen Dance Theatre. Outdoor stage on the Nazareth College Campus. (Rain space Linehan Chapel)

7 p.m.: Dancing on the Grass I Choreographer's Panel Outdoor stage on the Nazareth College Campus. (Rain space Linehan Chapel)

MONDAY, JULY 12

5 p.m.: Dancing on the Grass II Community dance performances including: Bill Evans Dance Company, Geomantics, BIODANCE, Bush Mango Drum and Dance. Outdoor stage on the Nazareth College Campus.

7 p.m.: Dancing on the Grass II Choreographer's Panel Outdoor stage on the Nazareth College Campus (Rain space Linehan Chapel)

TUESDAY, JULY 13

5 p.m.: "STREB: How to be an Extreme Action Hero" reading and signing by Elizabeth Streb. Nazareth College Shults Center Forum.

7 p.m.: Choreographer's Panel Featuring Inlet Dance Theatre artistic director Bill Wade and Rochester City Ballet artistic director Jamey Leverett; moderated by Thomas Warfield, director of RIT/NTID dance program. Nazareth College Shults Center Forum.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 14

8 p.m.: STREB Artistic Associates Panel Panelists to include theater director Robert Woodruff, composer-sound designer David van Tieghem, video projection artist Erik Pearson, and more; moderated by Marge Betley, literary manager and dramaturg, Geva Theatre. Nazareth College Shults Center Forum.

THURSDAY, JULY 15

1-7 p.m.: STREB Open Rehearsal Nazareth College Arts Center Callahan Theater.

8 p.m.: Elizabeth Streb and Garth Fagan: "What is Dance?" Discussion moderated by Deborah Ronnen, Deborah Ronnen Fine Art. Nazareth College Arts Center Callahan Theater. ($20)

9:30 p.m.: Champagne Toast w/Streb and Fagan Nazareth College Arts Center Lobby. (Included in cost of talk.)

FRIDAY, JULY 16

7 p.m.: STREB Pre-Performance Talk Nazareth College Arts Center Room A-14.

8 p.m.: World Premiere of "STREB: FORCES" Nazareth College Arts Center Callahan Theater. ($30-$50)

SATURDAY, JULY 17

7 p.m.: STREB Pre-performance Talk Nazareth College Arts Center Room A-14.

8 p.m.: "STREB: FORCES" Nazareth College Arts Center Callahan Theater. ($30-$50)

Nazareth College is located at 4245 East Ave. For more information call 389-2170 or visit go.naz.edu/dancefest.