Arts and crafts and dance

Dance fans likely need no reminder that we're still more than a month away from the season premiere of So You Think You Can Dance, nor that last year's tour skipped Sacramento (as did the tour before that, but who's keeping track?). Luckily, there's something to fill your pirouette-hungry heart in the meantime: For the fourth year running, Sacramento State University dance professor and Dancers Investigation Group co-founder Lorelei Bayne will be curating an evening of new and in-progress choreography by emerging artists in an up-close setting. If bearing witness to art is simply not enough, audience members are invited to provide feedback to the dancers after the performance (and the nice thing about abstract, avant-garde contemporary dance is that almost any interpretation is an insightful one).

The evening will also feature a special piece inspired by The Nature of William S. Rice: Arts and Crafts Painter and Printmaker, a current museum exhibit featuring several never-before-seen pieces of the printmaker's collection. Rice was known for his woodblock-print art and for his distinctive portrayals of California nature, so if you've ever wondered what happens when you mix 20th century arts-and-crafts woodblock printmaking with contemporary dance choreography, now is your chance—something tells me these kinds of collaborations don't happen every day. 6:30 p.m. Thursday, April 30; free for museum members, $8 students and youth, $10 nonmembers. 216 O Street, http://crockerartmuseum.org.