Dancer, choreographer and teacher Jean Appolon has long believed that dance is an important way of communicating, healing and bringing people together. Dance can do this, he says, because it is an art that is “free of judgement and a place where people feel safe and can really open up.”

His contemporary dance company, Jean Appolon Expressions (JAE), will bring its call for openness and connection to Edgewood Farm in Castle Hill next weekend. It will be the first time the Boston-based company, which explores Haitian folk culture, has performed at the Provincetown Dance Festival.

JAE recently returned from a dance course in the Dominican Republic where he taught 100 people – young people who would not normally have access to dance lessons.

Regarding the communicative purpose of dance, Appolon has selected two pieces that he believes have something important to say. Traka, what trauma means in his home country of Haiti, and Deposit, or power.

Traka, He says it’s designed to help people understand how they can “take the initiative to face their trauma by moving.” Appolon wants to show people the power of being involved and active in the community.

Power speaks to the kind of power that people in positions of authority wield. “It’s a piece that challenges leaders to step up,” he says.

At the festival on August 23 and 24, Appolon wants audience members to enjoy and find meaning in the dancers’ work. But he also hopes they feel the urge to express themselves by moving themselves in the Edgewood Farms landscape. “We want people to feel like they’re part of the dance, part of the art, and that they can really experiment with it,” he says.

JAE is one of three new companies among six participating in the 18th annual dance festival. Audiences will find a wide range of styles on stage during the festival, as well as slightly different programs for the two performances.

The festival’s artistic director, Adam Miller, has always tried to offer a variety of styles at what he calls the premier venue for professional dance on the Outer Cape. Over the years, more than 70 different solo or group dancers have attended the festival. Miller looks for companies that celebrate diversity and the heritage of different cultures; he welcomes and supports artist-activists; but what he says he looks for most in local fans is artistic expression.

He wants to be able to say, “You’ve seen something that celebrates queer culture, but you’ve also seen classical Indian dance, you’ve seen ballet, you’ve seen tap dancing, you’ve seen entertainment that’s as broad as the American art scene,” says Miller, whose family has spent time in Wellfleet for 50 years. “I demand that the work celebrate a cultural ideal.”

After years at the Provincetown Theater, the festival moved after the pandemic to the new outdoor Sam’s Stage in Truro, named after Miller’s late brother who was director of the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. The venue has attracted fans of all ages who picnicked, lounged on blankets and chairs and also did what Appolon hoped and moved.

Also new to the festival for 2024 is Boston Dance Theater, a contemporary repertory company with international choreographers that describes itself as committed to works of sociopolitical relevance. Their pieces in Truro are Itzik Galilis If as if, with themes such as longing, tenderness and doubt; and Marco Goeckes Affi, about pain, grief and loss, set to music by Johnny Cash.

Miller has scheduled Ballet Rhode Island this year because of its recent repertoire expansions: “I’m always looking for people who are rediscovering or proving the validity of contemporary ballet in relation to its classical heritage,” he says. “Ballet Rhode Island does that really well.”

This year’s festival, dedicated to our supporter Dian Reynolds, who also happens to be Miller’s mother, will again feature several artists: Indian classical dancers Rachna Agrawal and Laya Raj; Rovaco, an athletic contemporary dance group from New York City whose work explores themes of relationships, sex, capitalism, and queerness; and tap dancer Khalid Hill, who will perform with saxophonist Gregory Grover and bassist Max Ridley.

This is the third festival for Hill, who is also a teacher, actor (Bring Da’ Noise, bring Da’ Funk), Choreographer and artistic director (15 seasons of Boston’s The Urban Nutcracker). He has played solos for Hillary Clinton and Maya Angelou, but says he rarely performs on stage now. For this performance in Truro, he plans to stay true to the tradition of the rhythm tappers of the 1930s and ’40s.

Hill awaits the start a cappella, with only the sounds of his tapping feet echoing through the outside sound system before musicians join in. Combining tap dancing with the musicians’ long experience in improvised jazz, they will largely work out the pieces when they come together here, he says – partly before the performance, but mostly during it.

“You roughly lay down the melody, but then leave it completely open so we can improvise live,” says Hill. The result is “a big dialogue of musical rhythm sequences that plays out in front of the audience.”

Like JAE, he wants to involve the guests. He doesn’t expect them to dance, but he still sees them as part of the performance. “I want to break that wall and make it like sharing,” he says. “If they react, I react.”

Over the years, Miller has featured artists from Africa, the Caribbean, Russia, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Cambodia, Japan, India, China and Canada. There have been about 20 world premieres, and the dance forms represented at the festival include flamenco, traditional Chinese dance, hip hop, Afro-Caribbean dance, Irish dance, ballroom dancing and jazz.

“I always try to find a balance between favorites and supporting new artists,” says Miller. “And I don’t censor anything. We had nudity,” he says. “We had sand, we had salt, we had water – all kinds of things happened on that stage. And I love the surprise and the spontaneity of it. It was a good place for artists to present new work.”

On the feet

The event: Provincetown Dance Festival
The time: Friday-Saturday, 23-24 August, 7 p.m. (in rainy weather 30-31 August)
The place: Sam’s Stage (outdoor) at Edgewood Farm, Truro Center for the Arts in Castle Hill, 3 Edgewood Way, Truro
The costs: $40, students $30, advance; $45 day of performance, 508-349-7511, castlehill.org, provincetowndancefestival.com