On April 2, Ballet Flamenco La Rosa opened this year’s Miami Dance Festival with an original theatrical flamenco performance at the Colony Theater featuring a large ensemble of local and visiting dancers. On May 15, the festival comes to an end at the Byron Carlyle with the Momentum Dance Company Spring Season performances, the month having given Miami audiences plenty of opportunity to sample a wide spectrum of contemporary dance.
The festival started off eight years ago as much smaller-scale weekend program. A number of local dance companies, including Momentum Dance Company, Dance Now! Ensemble and Ballet Flamenco La Rosa decided to join forces and create a collective event for National Dance Week. Since that first year, the festival has steadily grown. Now, it is a full six-week program including an expanded roster of local companies, along with visiting artists, public events, and master classes.
According to Delma Iles, a co-founder of the Miami Dance Festival and the director of Momentum Dance Company, the festival is designed to make dance accessible to many different communities. To that end, performances and events will be presented in multiple venues around the city, from the Colony Theater to the Bass Museum to the Coral Gables Public Library, and more.
While the overall program has expanded significantly, its core remains the same – local dance companies will be presenting evening-length concerts. As a professor in the Miami-Dade College dance department, Iles noticed that many of her students had never seen a live dance performance before. When they went together to the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts on a class assignment, the students were genuinely impressed not only by the architecture of the theater itself, but also by the experience of seeing a dance concert for the first time.
A Young City That Needs Cultural Building Blocks
For the general public, dance is not necessarily a familiar art form. Miami is still a young city, culturally speaking, so local dance companies have to do more than just put on a good show. They have to welcome and build new audiences. The Miami Dance Festival is designed to do exactly that.
The range of work presented for this year’s festival promises entertainment for both newcomers and more experienced audiences. The Dance Now! Ensemble and Momentum Dance Company will each perform evening-length contemporary dance concerts in May. Both are founding members of the festival, and their performances represent a view into Miami’s contemporary dance scene. CORE Performance Ensemble, a company visiting from Atlanta, has also been invited to perform a multi-media dance and theater work in May.
Other satellite events step outside the bounds of traditional theater performance. Caligula, a film version of a ballet performance by Ballet de l’Opéra National de Paris, will be screened at the Miami Beach Cinematheque, and the Dance Now! Ensemble will go into the Bass Museum with EKPHRASIS 2, a site-specific dance event that responds to artwork in the museum.
The festival will also host lectures on subjects ranging from the role of dance criticism to Paris-style ballet, and the public will have an opportunity to speak with local choreographers about their work.
Audiences will not only be entertained, they will also be supporting local artists. As Iles commented, “right now is the scariest moment for funding that I have ever seen,” and events like the Miami Dance Festival offer each one of us an opportunity to help sustain and continue building a vital creative community, in spite of governmental budget cuts. We don’t have to be big dollar donors, we just have to buy a ticket.
Upcoming Miami Dance Festival Events:
April 20, 2011 at 7:30 pm
Festival Film Night: Screening of Caligula
Miami Beach Cinematheque
1130 Washington Ave., Miami Beach
This film documents Nicolas Le Rich’s first choreography for the Ballet de l’Opera National de Paris, an experimental production exploring the famous Roman emperor known for his excesses. The ballet is structured as three scenes with two pantomime interludes. Before the screening, a presentation will be offered on the French style of ballet.
Cost: $16 general admission / $15 Miami Dance Festival and MBC members; call 305-673-4567 or visit www.mbcinema.com
April 29, 2011 at 7:00 pm
Dance Now! and Little Haiti Cultural Center present
Little Haiti Neighborhood Nights
Little Haiti Cultural Center, 212 NE 59th Terr., Miami
The Dance Now! Ensemble will give Miami audiences a preview of the upcoming season finale at the Byron Carlyle Theater, featuring audience favorites from the 2010-11 season.
Cost: $10-20; purchase tickets the night of the show (cash or check only).
May 1, 2011 at 12:30 pm and 2:30 pm
Dance Now! and the Bass Museum of Art present
EKPHRASIS2: More Art from Art
Bass Museum of Art, 2121 Park Ave., Miami Beach
As part of Miami Museum Month, the Dance Now! Ensemble returns to the Bass Museum with a site-specific performance event created in dialogue with the museum’s current exhibitions.
Cost: free with museum admission.
May 5 at 7:00 p.m.
Critics Roundtable Panel Discussion
and a presentation by Augusto Soledade and Brazz Dance Theater
Miami Beach Botanical Garden
100 Convention Center Dr., Miami Beach
Writer and dance historian Dr. Andrea M. Seidel will moderate a panel discussion on the roles and responsibilities of dance criticism in a young arts community. Following the discussion, Brazz Dance Theater will present an informal performance of Cordel, a work in progress. The company’s Artistic Director, Augusto Soledade, will then open up a discussion about his creative process.
Cost: free
May 7, 2011 at 8:00 p.m.
Dance Now! Program III: Best of Now! Decade II
Byron Carlyle Theater, 500 71st St., Miami Beach.
Dance Now! presents an evening-length program of audience favorites from the 2010-11 season, including work of renowned West Coast Choreographer Tandy Beal.
Cost: $10-30; purchase at www.momentumdance.com or call the box office at 305-674-1040 x1.
May 13, 2011 at 8:00 PM
CORE Performance Group presents Corazon Abriendo (Heart Opening)
Byron Carlyle Theater, 500 71st St., Miami Beach
Atlanta-based CORE Performance Group returns to the festival for a second year with a dance and theater work featuring dance, sculpture, video and music. Corazon Abriendo takes audiences to the highlands and rainforests of Chiapas, Mexico to tell the story of the Mayan people.
Cost: $30 in advance, $35 at the door; purchase at www.momentumdance.com or call the box office at 305-674-1040 x1.
May 14 at 8:00 p.m. & 15 at 7:00 p.m.
Momentum Dance Company Spring Season 2011
Byron Carlyle Theater, 500 71st St., Miami Beach
Miami Dance Festival’s host company offers a repertory concert featuring two new works. The program includes a staging of Doris Humphrey’s historic 1928 work Water Study, along with repertory classics and the premier of a new work titled Pots and Pans.
Cost: $30 in advance, $35 at the door; purchase at www.momentumdance.com or call the box office at 305-674-1040 x1.
For more information on any of these events, or to learn about the schedule of master classes, visit www.momentumdance.com
Photos: From Dance Now! Decade II
