LEWISTON – The Bates Dance Festival will offer its three-week Youth Arts Program from July 26 through Aug. 14 at the United Baptist Church, 250 Main St.

Music and dance classes will be held from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Mondays through Fridays for students ages 6 to 17. The program will be divided into three age groups: 6 to 9 years, 10 to 12 years and 13 to 17 years. Each age group will take three daily classes in dance and music, with a snack provided mid-morning.

The cost of the program is $250. Scholarships are available to qualifying Lewiston students. For more information, call the Bates Dance Festival office at 207-786-6381.

Participants will learn a dynamic range of modern, ballet, hip-hop and social dance styles, as well as musical genres from around the world. Students will develop basic skills to enhance self-confidence and self-expression and gain an understanding of the performing arts.

Program highlights will include special master classes taught by internationally renowned artists-in-residence at the Bates Dance Festival. In addition, all students will receive complimentary tickets to select festival performances.

Culminating the program, the youth arts students will create and stage a special piece to be performed Saturday, Aug. 14, in Alumni Gym at Bates as part of the Festival Finale concert of the Bates Dance Festival.

Teen participants in youth arts will have a special opportunity to join a community performance workshop with the Everett Dance Theatre of Providence, R.I. The workshop will meet from 2 to 3:40 p.m. weekdays as part of the Bates Dance Festival.

The teens will be chosen to work with Everett and a group of 10 festival students to create a new piece that will also be performed at the finale concert at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 14.

Returning as co-director of the program are Sara Sweet Rabidoux and Rose Leach. Rabidoux is the artistic director of her own Boston-based dance company, hoi polloi, who will perform at the festival Saturday, July 17, in Schaeffer Theatre (for information and tickets call 786-6381).

Sara founded hoi polloi in 1998 upon graduating from Smith College. She has created works for CrashArts, Montana Transport Company, Boston Dance Umbrella, Mary Williford-Shade, Mount Holyoke College, Phillips Andover Academy, D-9 Dance Collective, Mesa State and Bates College.

Rose has been teaching dance to children and adults for more than 10 years. From Montana to Maine, she has taught under the auspices of the University of Montana, Montana Arts Council, Flynn Center for the Arts (Vt.), Contemporary Dance Studio and Bates Dance Festival.

Sara and Rose have been on the faculty of Youth Arts since the program’s inception in 1993.

Also returning to the staff this summer will be Mississippi-based dance educator Dana Reed, who has taught in the Jackson, Miss., public schools for the past three years. Three experienced college dance students will serve as apprentices to the program.

Returning to direct the music component will be Terrence Karn, a Houston-based musician and performer, who draws on a wide range of cultural traditions and instruments in his career as a performer, teacher and accompanist. He has been teaching music and dance to students of all ages for more than 25 years in locations across the globe.