LAKEPORT – The 26th Annual Spring Dance Festival is coming, and you don't want to miss it. It will be on the stage of the Marge Alakszay Center in Lakeport for two shows: at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 28 and 2 p.m. Sunday, April 29.

This is the first year that the festival will be held in the new, state-of-the-art performance facility a stone's throw from the Clear Lake High School gym where the show has been held for so many years.

The Alakszay Center has been longed for and anticipated by dancers and audience alike, and the festival committee has been knocking itself out to prepare a suitably expansive production for the pleasure of Lake County.

In the long history of the Spring Dance Festival there have been many new beginnings. It could be said that the festival recreates itself every year, bringing new talent and new choreography to the dance floor.

Those who have often attended the annual event have seen young dancers getting better and becoming stunning adults, and choreographers developing new styles in keeping with timely tastes. The festival has traced the changes as dance groups have come and gone, or stayed and evolved, or have burst upon the scene with dynamic determination.

Such would be the Lake Line Dancers, new to the Festival, as are B. I. O. Dance Company, Chemical Reaction Dance Team and Serenity Place Dancing. There is a lot of variety in that one sentence, and I won't try to describe them. If you want to be in the know, you will come to this show.

Returning, fortunately, are the teachers, choreographers and dancers who have given us so much pleasure in the past. If you have seen the work of the Clearlake Clikkers, Antoinette's School of Dance or the Jazz Factory Company, you will be eager to attend. If you have ever seen Kayla Gates, Hailey Yaffee, Rod Rehe or Lavonne Pattee dance (to name only a few, from a distinguished list), you will want to be there to see them again.

Tickets can be purchased at The Main Street Gallery, 325 N. Main St., Lakeport; Catfish Books, Willow Tree Plaza, Lakeport; The Bunk House, Middletown; and Direct Image Printing, Clearlake. A small number of reserved seats are available at the Main Street Gallery only.

For more information, call the Lake County Arts Council at 263-6658.

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