Every summer, the Bates Dance Festival brings dancers to Lewiston from around the world as students and faculty. This year, that group was supposed to include five dancers from Chad. The festival had offered scholarships, and an alum from their country was helping them secure money for their plane tickets.

Then, the travel bans came.

In June, President Trump banned citizens of 12 countries from traveling to the United States and imposed new restrictions on those from seven more. The order targeted mostly Middle Eastern and African countries, and it included Chad. The dancers could no longer join the festival.

“We were in the process of writing letters to support those visas when the travel bans came through,” said Shoni Currier, director of the Bates Dance Festival.

Maine has long been a destination for artists from around the world, but the Trump administration has created new barriers for some. Artists are now navigating changing federal policies on visas and immigration enforcement, as well as fears of being targeted for their citizenship status or gender identity. Arts organizations that host international guests are reporting canceled shows, deferred residencies, increased costs and general anxiety about travel to and inside the United States.

“The loss is exponential,” said Aimée Petrin, the executive and artistic director of Portland Ovations. “It’s not just the concert or the performance. It’s all the different ways that these international artists were going to engage with our communities.”

BOYCOTTS, BANS AND BILLS

In March, German pianist Schaghajegh Nosrati posted on Facebook that she would cancel her fall concerts in the United States out of protest.

“It causes me great emotional pain to observe the direction in which the country is developing under the Trump administration,” Nosrati wrote. “One of the world’s longest-standing democracies is giving way to an increasingly autocratic regime that claims the right to interfere in cultural institutions and sciences and dismiss masses of people who do not conform to the government’s ideology.”

Her schedule was supposed to include a November performance presented by Portland Ovations at Hannaford Hall. Petrin said Nosrati is one of two acts who have canceled so far because of the president’s policies. The West-Eastern Divan Ensemble, a group of Arab and Israeli chamber musicians, also withdrew from a U.S. tour out of concern for the safety and well-being of its members.

Petrin said the ensemble was supposed to perform in Portland in February — a performance that had been in the works for three years. Portland Ovations hopes to reschedule it, but the future looks more unpredictable than ever.

“Every time they come up with a new list of travel restrictions, I look right at it,” Petrin said.

Those who are still coming to the United States are facing increased challenges. Local organizations said securing visas for visiting artists was already a cumbersome and costly process, and it has only gotten worse. The Quebec-based trio Cecilia, which played the Opera House at Boothbay Harbor on July 3, ended up paying more than three times as much for a visa as it did in previous years.

Danielle Devlin, the band’s Vermont-based booking agent, said the group members felt forced to expedite their visa application this year by paying a $2,800 upgrade fee — on top of the $1,000 application fee.

Group members had applied for a one-year visa in March. By June 1 – with scheduled American performances set to begin in July – they still had no word about when the visa might be approved, Devlin said. After paying the upgrade fee, their visa was approved in late June, about a week before the band was scheduled to perform in Maine.

In past years, getting a visa to perform in the U.S. would take the Canadian band one to three months. Based on their experience this year, band members think they’ll need to apply for their next visa six to nine months before. The band members live in Quebec, including the Montreal and Sherbrooke areas, and perform Celtic and Québécois music.

Devlin, who works with 14 bands from Canada, said at least two of those bands have decided not to play here anymore because of the cost and uncertainty of getting a visa.

“I have a couple bands I work with who are boycotting coming to the U.S., and I don’t blame them one bit,” Devlin said.

‘A LITTLE BIT MORE CAREFUL’

In 2023, Hogfish presented “CarmXn,” which reinterpreted the classic opera in the present day on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Based in Cape Elizabeth, the opera company and artist residency aims to highlight underrepresented voices. “CarmXn,” for example, featured a professional cast of predominantly Latinx artists who helped develop the piece during their summer in Maine. Their version explored the concept of boundaries — in geopolitics, gender and genre.

This year, Hogfish will present “Svadba,” an a cappella opera inspired by women, ritual and Balkan folk music. Composer Ana Sokoloviç was born in Serbia and is now based in Canada. Matt Cahill, who founded Hogfish with his husband, Edwin Cahill, said they are proud to present a show written by a woman for the first time. “Svadba” has also allowed the company to connect with local Serbian artists for guidance on diction and dance steps.

But Cahill said Hogfish also chose this work because it would not require so many people to come to the U.S. from other countries. He has been hearing from friends about their fears, including new policies on gender markers on passports that could present a barrier for transgender and nonbinary travelers.

“We’re trying to be aware of what’s going on federally,” Cahill said. “For us, it’s wanting to make sure that we’re working responsibly, and if we invite people here, that we can really take care of them so they can be authentic and make art from their experience. And we’re limited, and we’re trying to build out what we can do and what we can’t, and this adds so many layers of making sure that people are taken care of and feel calm and safe enough to do deep artistic work. It felt like a year of being a little bit more careful.”

Artists, too, are being more careful.

Marc Mewshaw, the former executive director of Hewnoaks in Lovell, said rural artist residencies are seeing fewer applications this year from artists who are part of marginalized communities. He has heard concerns from people who wonder whether they will be safe if they have a flat tire on the side of an unfamiliar road in more conservative parts of the state.

“The normalization of anti-trans, anti-immigrant and racially charged rhetoric has emboldened sentiments that were once hidden, creating a sense of ambient risk for some of our applicants,” Mewshaw said.

Leaders at Maine’s artist residencies said they are constantly talking to peers about these issues. Yael Reinharz, executive director at Surf Point in York, said her group chat discussion has focused on keeping their housing safe for visiting artists. Jordia Benjamin, executive director of Indigo Arts Alliance in Portland, said the nonprofit is looking at partnerships with international residencies that share their mission.

“There’s a bit of a recalibration going on,” Mewshaw said. “Organizations are starting to revise strategies that were working to date and adapt them to the exigencies of the moment. I think it’s probably going to come down to more direct ambassadorship and outreach to those communities.”

CALCULATING THE LOSSES

For artists, having to make these choices can come with a very literal cost.

Reinharz said one artist dropped out of the residency at Surf Point because their car was stolen. Their partner, who is an immigrant, relied on the vehicle to get to and from work, and what might once have been an inconvenience suddenly presented a risk. The stress prompted the artist to change their plans.

“The fear is a trip wire that can lead to loss of funds, that can then lead to lots of other calamitous results,” Reinharz said.

Reinharz did not want that artist to lose anticipated income because of factors outside of their control. She decided to give the artist the $2,000 honorarium that comes with the residency, as well as a future invitation to come to Surf Point.

“A relatively small amount of money can make a big difference,” Reinharz said. “I’m sure that my colleagues are thinking about that as well. If a performance is canceled or an opportunity is canceled, can any of those resources still be allocated to that person?”

Currier recalled a recent conversation with a young dancer who was born in another country. While the dancer lives in the United States legally, they still decided to not to take a job on a European tour because of the uncertainty about federal policies over leaving the country.

“There’s enough fear to turn down two months of work,” Currier said.

Harder to quantify is the art that is lost when artists can’t create. Those five dancers from Chad might have spent three weeks in Lewiston on their craft. Now they won’t.

“They were going to come as students,” Currier said. “That’s really an example of cultural exchange. To have five artists from a country that is very far away, a country where I don’t know a ton about the dance scene, to have those artists come here and interact with our local U.S.-based college students and young professionals — that’s really compelling. And we’re losing those opportunities.”

Staff Writer Ray Routhier contributed to this story.