NC Dance Festival

“Megan Mazarick has such an incredible ability to become lots of different characters,” co-curator Anne Morris says of the local choreographer, whose solo work, monster, opens this year’s Durham dates of the North Carolina Dance Festival. In light of the #MeToo movement and the Kavanaugh hearings, Mazarick’s investigation of cultural perceptions of women “is even more powerful.” Greensboro choreographer Duane Cyrus’s Hero Complexities digs into cultural ideas about race and valor as it explores the sacrifice of Charles W. David Jr., who overcame racial stigma in a segregated Coast Guard in 1943, rescued survivors from a torpedoed ship in freezing waters, and subsequently died of pneumonia. Emily Cargill’s NCDF debut, quiet beings, explores the change in identity a woman experiences upon becoming a mother, and the Charlotte duo Reliable Brother crafts a portrait of young men pursuing dreams and facing fears in their hip-hop work, The Destiny. The festival includes Mazarick’s Saturday-afternoon master class at ADF Scripps Studios and post-show talkbacks with the artists. —Byron Woods