Mark Dendy doesn't have his own modern dance company anymore, having moved on to Broadway and other projects. But when the American Dance Festival invited the Weaverville native to be part of its no-holds-barred 75th-year blowout, he couldn't refuse.

Who wouldn't want to be part of a mega-marquee season that boasts the dance equivalents of a Pink Floyd-Led Zeppelin double bill?

Eiko & Koma with John Jasperse Company, Pilobolus with Martha Clarke, Paul Taylor with the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, Meredith Monk with Bill T. Jones, Shen Wei with David Parsons.

The list goes on, a jaw-dropping 6-week season that ADF broke its piggy bank to produce -- the price tag more than twice last year's.

"It really is a once-in-a-lifetime season," said co-director Jodee Nimerichter, who praised the big name acts for agreeing to join double and triple bills tracing the long and varied path modern dance has taken.

Dendy, who has created several new works for ADF, became a student there after seeing the 1981 premiere of Laura Dean's "Tympani." Fittingly, that work shares the bill with his own this year.

"It hit my soul," Dendy recalled in a telephone interview. "That work has stayed with me forever."

The festival's history -- in Durham for 31 years, and before that in Connecticut and Vermont -- is full of such transformative works, and this season offers a generous taste of them.

A lineup like this won't happen again, Nimerichter said.

"Except maybe for the 100th."