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The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe kicks off tomorrow, September 7, and we want to make sure you’re fully prepared for the 16 days of artistic madness.

We’ve been pulling together a series of guides to events, plus spotlights on some of our particular favorites, to assist you in choosing what to attend.

First up was a roundup of shows in unusual locations, then participatory shows in wich the audience makes the performance.

You can also check out our Beginner’s Guide to the Fringe Festival. One of the points we make in that guide is that the Fringe is not all about theater, but rather hosts shows in every genre from comedy to spoken word to film.

Below, we present picks for dance shows, in order by date. There are more than two dozen to choose from, and we’ve selected our top 10. But they’re all going to be stellar; browse the full list here.

• Nichole Canuso Dance Company: September 5-21, Jefferson Garden at the American Philosophical Society Museum, 104 S. 5th Street. The talented Nichole Canuso Dance Company has been commissioned by the APS Museum to create a series of performances, titled Return Return Departure, this fall. The first four will be part of the Fringe, and take place in the gorgeous Jefferson Garden.

• Dancefusion… 2 Views: September 7-8, Mandell Theater, 3300 Chestnut Street. Dancefusion will present 2 Views, two programs that will rotate over two days. View 1 will feature the reconstructions of Mary Anthony’s dramatic masterwork, Gloria (1967), set to Poulenc’s celebrated music and The Wind (1949), a solo set to the poem by e.e. cummings with music by Debussy along with Colin Connor’s haunting duet Scales of Vertigo. View 2 will feature exciting new works by innovative choreographers Justin Bryant, Barry Kerollis, Daniel Maloney and Charles Tyson, Jr.

• Day For A Dream by Call Me Crazy Dancers: September 7-8, Conwell Dance Theater at Temple University, 1801 N. Broad Street. The Call Me Crazy Dancers return with their dynamic fusion of dance, live music and spoken word, exploring dreams through ballet, jazz, tap, modern and contemporary dance.

• This Town Is a Mystery by Headlong Dance Theater: September 7-22, locations vary. This extremely innovative productions combines local performance and dinner in four Philadelphia homes. Created over the course of several months by Headlong and each home’s residents, the dance works are performed by the residents in their own living rooms — transformed into a fully teched stage — with no professional performers. And you get to be a part of watching the results. All you have to do is buy a ticket, make a dish, travel to the designated neighborhood and take a seat in the living room with ten other audience members. Potluck dinner follows the performance.

• Le Grand Continental by Sylvain Émard Danse: September 8-9, Philadelphia Museum of Art steps, 2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Watch the world’s most glorious contemporary dancing event from the front steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Le Grand Continental is a festive, free, 30-minute outdoor adventure that has assembled nearly 200 local dancers of all ages and backgrounds to show off the talent, charisma and personality of Philadelphians. First created for Montréal’s renowned Festival TransAmériques, the Philadelphia version promises to be one of the largest presentations of its kind in the world.

Keep reading to see the rest of the Top 10, below.

• The Gate Reopened by Brian Sanders’ JUNK: September 14-22, Pier 9, 121 N. Columbus Boulevard. This year’s Brian Sanders performance takes place outdoors on Pier 9, taking over a municipal warehouse on the Delaware River that is nearly 100 feet wide by 535 feet long and where international steamers once docked. Inside this massive structure The Gate has been built anew as a 20-foot high cylindrical octagon. With theater-in-the-round seating, audiences encircle the eight dancers in what has become a futuristic, post-industrial, post-apocalyptic coliseum.

• Private Places by idiosynCrazy productions: September 15-20, Live Arts Studio, 919 N. 5th Street. Philly-based choreographer Jumatatu Poe debuts this visceral work that plays with the stylized movement of the service industry and the high-powered approach of J-Sette, a dance culture developed in black gay clubs with roots in drill team and majorette events of Southern historically black universities.

• Sequence 8 by 7 Fingers: September 18-23, Merriam Theater, 250 S. Broad Street. Back in Philadelphia by extraordinarily popular demand is Montreal-based 7 Fingers, bringing Sequence 8 to the Kimmel Center’s Merriam Theater Tuesday, September 18 through Sunday, September 23. Click here to enter our contest to win tickets.

• Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner, and the Farewell Speech by chelfitsch: September 19, Christ Church Neighborhood House, 20 N. American Street. From acclaimed Japanese playwright-director Toshiki Okada comes this triptych of plays that capture the malaise and instability of young low-level office workers with humor and striking movement. Set within an office break room, this trio of interconnected stories is accompanied by the performers’ choreographed gestures, everyday motions that have evolved into startling physical images of emotion and thought.

• UNTITLED FEMINIST SHOW by Young Jean Lee’s Theater Company: September 19-21, Philadelphia Theatre Company’s Suzanne Roberts Theatre, 480 S. Broad Street. In Young Jean Lee’s latest experiment, six charismatic stars of the downtown theater, dance, cabaret and burlesque worlds come together to invite the audience on an exhilaratingly irreverent, nearly-wordless celebration of a fluid and limitless sense of identity. Lee writes her shows as she directs them, working collaboratively with performers and an artistic team, and with feedback from workshop audiences.

Browse through and get tickets to the 2012 shows right here. Tickets range from free to $55.

Insider tip: student/25-and-under tickets are $15 for Live Arts Festival tickets and $5 off if the Fringe ticket price is $15 or over. Groups of 10+ save 25%.

Want to see every single show? That is, as many of the 200+ shows as you can manage? The All Access Passmakes the Festival easy by granting admission to every Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe show and 20% off up to 3 additional tickets per performance. Get your All Access Pass online.

Previously:

Fringe Festival Roundup: Top Picks For Participatory Shows In Which The Audience Makes The Performance

Fringe Festival Roundup: Top Picks For Performances At Unusual Sites, From A Pub To A Yoga Studio To A Museum Gallery To A Skate Park

A Beginner’s Guide To The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival And Philly Fringe, Returning September 7-22 With Almost 700 Theater, Dance, Music, Comedy And Spoken Word Performances