Tar Heel jamboree.

For many regional choreographers, forging a successful dance career still means hitting the highway to New York. But in North Carolina, it's roads closer to home that beckon with opportunity. Currently beginning its 15th season, the touring network known as the North Carolina Dance Festival gives its homegrown artists the opportunity to strut their stuff all over their state.

Featuring a different lineup each year, this performance caravan crisscrosses the Tar Heel State from September through February, stopping in six major cities and featuring the work of eight touring companies, plus additional performances by local artists at each stop.

While the American Dance Festival in Durham maintains all international scope, this one produces dance "that draws from the life in North Carolina," says festival founder Jan Van Dyke, whose modern dance company is usually on the roster. This year it also includes former Lar Lubovitch dancer Gerri Houlihan (see "Teacher's Wisdom," July); award-winning Raleigh-based Robin Harris, director of NC State's dance program; the Charlotte-based dance/theater group Kinetic Works; and Niki Juralewicz, a former Trisha Brown dancer who recently relocated to Chapel Hill.

"I look forward to it," says Nancy Trovillion, assistant director of the North Carolina Arts Council, which helps fund the festival. "I can go to one of these and see a showcase of what's happening in the state." She adds that the festival connects the performers to new audiences and to other local artists. "It's built a strong support network," says Trovillion.

A dance professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Van Dyke says she grew tired of seeing talented dance students pack up and leave after graduation due to a lack of performing opportunities. "To get them to stay, to help them forge a career, things have to be happening here," notes Van Dyke, who similarly founded two Washington, D.C. studio/performance hubs (the Georgetown Workshop in 1966 and the Dance Project in 1975) when she lived there.

Along with her UNC colleague John Gamble, Van Dyke jumpstarted the NCDF in 1991 with a small three-clay event in a Greensboro theater. Slowly expanding to other cities, the festival currently travels from the mountain community of Boone to the coastal city of Wilmington, with stops in Asheville, Raleigh, and Charlotte.

As the festival has taken hold, local presenters have created additional events to coincide with its arrival, including the first Children's Festival in Raleigh last year. And festival performers have discovered unexpected windfalls. "It's led to residencies in high schools and colleges and to collaborative opportunities with other dance artists," says Valerie Midgett, artistic director of the X Factor Dance Company, based in Boone. She adds, "Sometimes it's hardest to be accepted in our own backyards. It put us on the map and helped us gain respect in our own hometown."