The Vail Dance Festival has all the trappings of your average acclaimed summer dance festival: nightly performances; daily master classes; a remote, picturesque location. But what has distinguished this 10-day annual festival since Damian Woetzel took the reins nearly two decades ago are the experiments in cross-pollination. The former New York City Ballet star and current Juilliard president maintains a formidable stable of regulars across disciplines and idioms. Among the dancers are N.Y.C.B.’s Sara Mearns and Mira Nadon, American Ballet Theatre’s Calvin Royal III and Herman Cornejo, Broadway’s Robbie Fairchild, modern dance powerhouse Melissa Toogood, and jookin’ singularity Lil Buck. The choreographers are equally high voltage: tap genius Michelle Dorrance, N.Y.C.B. resident choreographer Justin Peck, and contemporary dance choreographers Kyle Abraham, Jamar Roberts, and Pam Tanowitz. On August 5, the festival culminates in premieres where everyone leaves their lanes for mashups that are sometimes magical, sometimes a mess, but almost always fun. —Apollinaire Scherr