Dog Days of Summer Dance Festival at the Pioneer Center
Where: E.L. Cord Plaza at the Pioneer Center
When: August 15-17, 2025
What: Dog Days of Summer Dance Festival – Celebrate community, creativity, and compassion at the annual Dog Days of Summer Dance Festival, hosted by the Pioneer Center! This FREE outdoor event features a unique mixed-genre dance program each night, spotlighting talented northern Nevada-based dance companies and special guest artists.
Attendees are encouraged to arrive early, bring blankets or chairs for seating, and enjoy delicious offerings from local food trucks before the show begins. The plaza opens at 6:00pm, with performances starting at 7:30pm.
As part of this special event, the SPCA of Northern Nevada will host a nightly Pup Parade—a heartwarming fashion show featuring alumni dogs and dedicated volunteers. This fun and furry feature helps raise awareness and support for SPCA-NN’s life-saving mission. We kindly ask that guests leave their own pets at home for this event.
The 2025 Headlining Dance Companies Are:
· Ballet Folklórico Internacional de Reno y Danza Azteca Aztlán (Mariano Lemus, Antonio Muñoz, & Anastacio Duran, directors)
· Entity Movement (Sierra Taylor-Cline & Brandon Dabu, directors)
· Heart & Sole Dance Academy (Jenny Buck, director)
· Nevada Dance Company (Erica & Oliver Adams, directors)
· Western Nevada Performing Arts (Gina Davis, director)
· White Light Bollywood Productions (Chhavi Bhalla, director)
Featured dance companies performing this year Ballet Folklórico Pueblo Nuevo, The Ballroom of Reno, Controlled Burn, Convergence Dance Collective, and NoteAble Music Therapy Services Dance Troupe.
The 2025 Featured Guest Artist is INA OKUN, starring Giselle Soto and David Gervais.
· Giselle Soto was raised in Havana, Cuba. She earned her Bachelor’s in Afro-Cuban Folkloric Dance from Havana’s Superior Institute of Art. In 2016, Giselle joined Obini Batá, the first all-female Afro-Cuban folkloric group founded in 1991, whom she performed and taught with in New York City, Nicaragua, Morocco, and Mexico. Other credits include dancing with MSC Cruises (Sabor Cubano), Cuban orchestra Los Van Van, and Maelo Ruiz at Mexico City’s National Auditorium. In 2019, she founded Crearte, a children’s community dance/theater group in Havana. Since moving to the U.S., she was the lead dancer/choreographer for the Reno Jazz Orchestra’s Artown 2024 concerts, and she hosted a week-long residency at UNR’s Department of Dance this past Fall.
· David Gervais was raised in Northern Nevada and received his Bachelor’s in Jazz Performance from UNR. In 2019, he released his first album, “The Last Stand of Unsophisticated Display”, consisting of all original compositions. During his time at UNR, he was introduced to Afro-Cuban percussion. He quickly developed a love and passion for it and began studying with Michael Spiro in the San Francisco Bay area. After studying abroad in Cuba, David performed and taught in Brooklyn, NY for a year and a half. He then spent a year performing and studying Afro-Cuban music in Mexico City with Manley “Piri” López, the youngest member of the famous “Los Chinitos” family of Havana, Cuba.
INA OKUN will perform on all three evenings of the Dog Days of Summer Dance Festival.