Jade Harrell with Michael Uthoff, Dance St. Louis

SPRING TO DANCE is a dance festival that started out as just an idea of Dance St. Louis Artistic and Executive Director Michael Uthoff, and sprouted into one of the hottest dance festivals in the country.

It’s the best opportunity of the year for St. Louis to see all types of dance, varying in style and repertoire, from nationally touring professional dance companies in the Midwest and on the East and West Coasts.

SPRING TO DANCE features 30 different professional dance companies from all across the country (San Francisco, Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis, New York City and more), varying in style and repertoire and performing for 3 consecutive nights.

Uthoff, who created the festival in 2008, developed a formula for the 3-day program whereby participating companies are a mix of those that appeared the year before, those that did not appear that year but appeared in previous festivals, and those completely new to St. Louis. This formula ensures the return of audience favorites while keeping the mix fresh.

For tickets, go to www.dancestlouis.org.

WHAT: 7th Annual Emerson SPRING TO DANCE® FESTIVAL 2014
WHEN: Thursday, Friday and Saturday, May 22-24
TIME: Doors open at 5 p.m., Performance begins at 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.
WHERE: Touhill Performing Arts Center (pronounced TWO-hill)
TICKETS: $15 per night