The Miami City Ballet Company (MCB) will close its 2012-2013 season this weekend at the Arsht Center with Broadway and Ballet, a valentine to Jerome Robbins and George Balanchine. No surprise there, since the MCB has been acclaimed far and wide for its devotion to the masters, especially Balanchine. What makes this program so delicious is the unpredictable pairing of the works as well as the works themselves.

The first part of the performance belongs to Jerome Robbins. So successful was he as a choreographer of Broadway musicals — “West-Side Story,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” “The King and I” are only a sampling of his handiwork — that it is easy to forget that Robbins loved ballet as well. And ballet as pure as it gets: that’s what his “Dances at a Gathering” is all about.

Originally created by Robbins in 1969 and set to the piano music of Chopin, it marked his return to more classical forms, most particularly pas de deux. The ballet has no props, and hardly any set. Five couples came together in no less than 18 movements, nearly all of them waltzes and Slavic mazurkas. This “Gathering,” in the hands of the rotating cast of MCB, which includes Jeanette and Patricia Delgado as well as Rene Penteado, is a nearly encyclopedic examination of flirtation. One may as often sigh at its sheer beauty of a piece as laugh aloud at its wit. There are the twists that Robbins was so fond of: a gesture at odds with the lyricism of a movement that manages to zap up its impact. And there are the times when flirtation becomes surrender. Look out then.

If the evening begins with elegance and a delight in non-narrative movement not ordinarily associated with Jerome Robbins, the evening ends with bawdiness and very nearly a funk not ordinarily associated with Balanchine. His ballet, “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue,” was originally a play within a play, part of a Rodgers and Hart Broadway hit, “On Your Toes” from the 1930s. Several decades later Balanchine dusted off his work and expanded it into a stand-alone ballet filled with ladies of easy virtue, silly coppers, sly gangsters and a very deadly competition between two male dancers centering far more on their skill as dancers than any issues of romantic attachment. The real question seems to be, can a great classical dancer become a great hoofer if circumstances demand.

Yep. Especially with a little help from one’s friends, or in this case one Phillip Neil, tap-dancer, former New York City Ballet principal and current South Florida resident. Suddenly — that is after a bit of tutelage — several MCB members  including the great Yann Trividic, become the irrepressible hoofers and jazzistas   “Slaughter” demands. Patricia Delgado, dancing in very high heels, plays the love interest in a climax that could wake the dead.

If all this weren’t enough, on Friday night, the part of gangster gunman will be played by retired Major League Baseball catcher extraordinaire, Mike Piazza. He promises no errors.

Miami City Ballet’s Program IV Broadway and Ballet, Friday and Saturday at 8:00 p.m., Sunday at 2:00 p.m. at the Ziff Ballet Opera House, the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300  Biscayne Blvd., Miami; tickets range from $20 to $175; www.arshtcenter.org.

This review also appears in Miami New Times.

Photo: Daniel Azoulay

In a single weekend, we will be able to see two of this country’s reputable dance companies, both selecting ballets made in the United States and in a variety of American styles, in one Broward setting.

The Broward Center for the Performing Arts is offering a ticket deal — $99 to see both companies on two separate days. And, like many things American, each of the five ballets delivers a distinctive taste, influenced by a worldly palette. The red hot contemporary Trey McIntyre Project (TMP) will perform three of McIntyre’s ballets, flavored by traditional Basque dancing, Shakespeare and more, Friday and Saturday at the Center’s Amaturo Theater. South Florida’s Miami City Ballet (MCB) will present repertory of George Balanchine, founder of the New York City Ballet (NYCB), and Jerome Robbins, best known for his Broadway choreography, Friday through Sunday at the Au-Rene Theater.

Local dance-goers might already have plans to see MCB, which conducts four programs plus The Nutcracker annually at the Broward Center (it will be in Miami at the Arsht Center May 3 through 5). They might also be familiar with the 10-member TMP, who performed there last year, led by the much sought-after choreographer McIntyre, who has created dances for ballet companies from Moscow to Santiago, New York to Chicago. Seeing both in one weekend, a viewer can observe how choreographers working in the United States have made different soups from the same stock — the stock, in this case, being classical ballet vocabulary.

Dancer Elizabeth Keller embodies many of dance’s histories and experimentations. Born in Dubai to Pittsburgh-native parents, she trained in London at the Royal Academy of Dance and in Houston and Philadelphia. Dancing with MCB for 10 seasons under founder Edward Villella, formerly a leading dancer at NYCB, she absorbed the speed, clarity and precision of Balanchine technique. Earlier, in Pennsylvania, she fell in love with Balanchine’s choreography by working on it with the French ballerina Violette Verdy, Villella’s colleague and one of Keller’s mentors. Keller remembers Verdy describing the circular movement rond de jamb in this appealing way: “Stir, stir the chocolate  fondu. It’s gooey.” A striking movement, frappé, was “sharp, sharp like cheddar cheese.”

Now in her first season with TMP, Keller challenges her ballet-trained body with new tasks. McIntyre’s rigorous choreography includes not only pointe work, but also weighty, grounded movement. Dancers are sometimes called upon to rotate their legs externally, as in ballet, but Keller now must also engage other parts of the body to work in a parallel stance. Additionally, Keller says, McIntyre “encourages us to be present and almost, in a way, vulnerable,” both in the studio and on stage. In rehearsal for Queen of the Goths (2007), loosely based on Titus Andronicus, McIntyre pushed Keller to investigate each moment and detail of choreography — “It has to mean something, it has to cost you something,” she recalls him saying about a series of gestures by her character, Tamora, who unwittingly eats a meat pie made from the remains of two of her slain sons.

MCB’s offering of Balanchine’s burlesque Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (1968), based on the 1936 musical On Your Toes, tells a lighter story. And Robbins’ elegant Dances at a Gathering (1969) depicts human relationships through the physical expression of Chopin’s music. Keller says that, like Robbins, McIntyre encourages his dancers to engage with one another on stage, drawing the audience into their world and stirring their imaginations.

McIntyre’s Pass, Away, commissioned by the Broward Center and premiering this weekend, and Arrantza (2010), join Queen of the Goths on the TMP program.

This is the deal: for $99, you choose one night in an orchestra seat to see TMP, at 7:30 p.m. on Friday or Saturday; one night day or night to see MCB, on Friday at 8:00 p.m., or Saturday and Sunday at either 2:00 or 8:00 p.m. The Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 S.W. Fifth Ave., Ft. Lauderdale; for tickets call 954-462-0222.

Photo: MCB’s “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue”; photo: Daniel Azoulay

This also appears with Miami New Times.

The lovely weather down here these days, the vibrant cultural scene, the ethnically diverse food options, all those are reasons that have Alison Chase jumping for joy. It is pretty cold, by the way, in Maine, where she lives.

But more important than all that: the modern dance giant — she co-founded, oh, some little groups you may have heard of, like Pilobolus and Momix — is thrilled to be in South Florida this week to hold the world premiere of her work Red Weather, at the South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center (SMDCAC) on Saturday.

Red Weather is part of a four-piece show that Chase’s touring program, Alison Chase Performance (from her dance theater production company, Apogee Arts), will be performing in our area, where she and her dancers have also been sharing with the community by way of workshops.

“I am doing a whole week of outreach here, and one workshop was very exciting because it involved kids from the area and a senior citizens group, and so we did a transgenerational workshop,” says Chase from the SMDCAC facilities. “I am looking forward to working with local choreographers and dancers… I would like to come down and just do research, with the music and the restaurants. This is a really rich, wonderful, community here.”

The opportunity to teach in South Florida is a welcomed one for the choreographer, professor and 67-year-old mother of three who brought a highly kinetic style to dance, adding film, aerial performances (expect that in her South Miami-Dade show), and multidimensional storytelling to create a signature style.

“We don’t have such a dynamically diverse community,” continues Chase about how South Florida differs from her region. “We enjoy teaching people the process of invention, and encourage them to blend whatever kind of dance they do, whether it’s merengue or salsa, to approach it playfully, and to expand that vocabulary out.”

And expanding the vocabulary of dance is what St. Louis-born-and-raised Alison Chase has been doing most notably since October 1971 when, along with several colleagues at Darmouth College, what would become one of the world’s best known and most important contemporary dance companies, Pilobolus Dance Theater, took its first steps.

Chase’s life with Pilobolus abruptly and stunningly came to an end, however, in December 2005. Reports surfaced that Chase had been fired due to differences with the company’s board of directors, who wanted her to sign over ownership of her innovative works.

She refused.

Pilobolus, meanwhile, disputed her version of ownership rights in the media.

When asked about this episode today, Chase responds that she can’t comment on it. “Well, I have moved beyond. I have signed a gag order,” she says. “I am delighted to be doing what I’m doing.”

After the Pilobolus chapter, the winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship (1980), among many other awards, free-lanced, until she officially founded Apogee Arts in 2010.

“I realized that I passionately enjoy making dances, and if I had an ensemble that I could sort of be free to direct into new choreographic adventures, and teach them, I felt there would be great freedom in a small organization that’s not trapped by such a heavy, heaving touring schedule,” she explains. “And I’ve enjoyed doing it with a pacing and a phrasing that I can control and that it’s not overwhelmingly frenetic. I like to work slow.”

Slow, however, is definitely not an adjective to describe her work.

Alison Chase Performance at SMDCAC, 10950 SW 211 Street, Cutler Bay, Saturday, April 13, at 8:00 p.m. Tickets range from $10 to $35 (a select number of $5 Cultureshockmiami.com tickets are available for ages 13-22); www.smdcac.org; 786-573-5300; www.cultureshockmiami.com.

This article also appears with Miami New Times.

Afro-Caribbean folklore entered Peter London’s soul at age six, and never left.

In the hilly Trinidadian countryside, the then-youngster would take part in religious ceremonies often led by his family members, who were strong keepers of the Yoruba-derived faith and drumming. From there, his love for dance sprouted into classical dance that led him to New York, where he would become one of the most sought after dancers for such power houses as Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey and José Limón.

In his early 20s, the fresh out of Trinidad dancer had all three dance legends tugging at him. But it was seeing a highly intense Martha Graham performance that made the deepest impression and won him over. The colorful, highly physical repertoire was reminiscent, London says, of Orisha dance rituals back in the islands. However, prior to leaving Trinidad, London set a long-term goal to start his own dance company that would blend the classical with the folklore. The internationally renowned dancer and choreographer and New World School of the Arts professor fulfilled his dream of starting a company in 2011, after receiving a challenge grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

Today, the mix of classical ballet, modern dance and Afro-Caribbean folkloric movement and music are the mainstay of the Peter London Global Dance Company (PLGDC). The ensemble will have two performances this Sunday as part of its Spring Showcase at the Little Haiti Cultural Center, where London is an artist in residence. London promises that the company will deliver its signature energetic repertoire. “The Spring Dance Showcase realizes the mission of my company in a way that is bold, large, passionate and honors the diverse heritage of South Florida and America,” says London. “It is with the exceptional and disciplined hard work of the young dancers and choreographers that makes the dream a reality.”

One of his most striking and soul-stirring choreographies is Stand, which is based on women living in war-torn conditions and was conceived after London heard the news of Haitian women and girls being raped in displacement camps after the 2010 earthquake. The costumes for Stand are made from shredded newspaper.

Among the new ballets are Carmen, which is based on the story of Bizet’s Opera’s but danced to fiery Flamenco music; The Secret, inspired by the Griot music of Mali; and Rain and Wings, inspired by Native American music created for Sasha Caicedo Paolo, a PLGDC guest performer.

The showcase will give concertgoers a feast of world-class contemporary dance talent, both home-grown and national. The showcase will feature two soloists from the Martha Graham Dance Company: Lloyd Knight and Mariya Dashkina Maddux, who will perform the renowned Graham duet Conversation of Lovers. The program will also include a premiere by PLGDC Artist Associate and South Floridian La Michael Leonard, principal dancer for Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company.

London’s company is primarily made up of current and past students of the New World School of the Arts in downtown Miami, where he has taught dance for over two decades and helped students form their careers with top companies. Alvin Ailey Director Robert Battle and the company’s principal dancer, Jamar Roberts, are among the dance notables who’ve come under London’s tutelage as teens.

London’s rise to dance stardom is the stuff made for novels. He still remembers the day that Graham invited him to her private vestibule and asked him to join her company; and the day Alvin Ailey gave him a full scholarship that allowed London to train at the school at his leisure. Not to mention touring with Limón. In spite of his long and illustrious career, London finds that living and teaching in Miami keeps him culturally inspired. “Miami is the doorway into Europe and the Caribbean. Every island and every country in South America is here — smack dead in Miami,” says London.

Given South Florida’s diversity, his students at New World and his company’s dancers readily embrace the cultural themes of his choreographies. “They are coming from Caribbean parents. It’s just a natural fit,” said London, adding that “they are so happy to have someone at New World to relate to their family heritage.”

Peter London’s “Spring Showcase” will feature two shows at the Little Haiti Cultural Center on Sunday at the Little Haiti Cultural Center, 212 N.E. 59th Terr., Miami; the 1:30 p.m. performance is free, general admission tickets to the 7:30 p.m. costs  $35.00. VIP tickets are also on sale for $100.00; www.miamifoundation.org. 

This preview also appears on the Miami New Times website.

After two seasons of sold-out  performances at the Arsht Center, Haiti’s Ayikodans is returning for a weekend of dance February through Sunday. The company will be presenting a world premier of their Artistic Director Jeanguy Saintus’ “Lamentation 13,”  a work commissioned by the Arsht Center. Not only that, the dance company will be celebrating its 25^th anniversary here with a companion piece “Eritaje 25” (Heritage 25), a collage of 25 years of Ayikodans’ choreography.

We spoke with the award-winning Saintus about the Miami visit.

Q: What should a South Florida audience expect from your February performances?

A: These works are largely autobiographical. They are the work of a Haitian interested in creating a country, let alone a place for dance in that country. They are the work of a dialogue between a Haitian and the rest of the world.

Our entire company will be in Miami. That includes dancers, drummers, and our vocalist.

Since so much of Ayikodans’  work has deep roots in Haiti’s traditions, those drummers can’t be separated from the dancers. The same goes for the tonalities of our vocalist.

Q: Your choreography has often been compared to that of Martha Graham. Do you feel indebted to her?

A: I find the comparison very interesting. While I have taken a number of workshops on various techniques, I have never  worked intensively within a Martha Graham system of dance. As dancers I think we learn various techniques to more easily communicate with one other, let alone help protect our bodies. But as any dancer knows, technique will only take you so far. What transforms a dancer and an audience, is the feeling a dancer can convey. Graham knew that. But to find it for myself, I turned to my own traditions. I spent far more time deep in the Haitian countryside than I did in workshops in New York City. I studied the artistry, the dancing of the vodou ceremonies, for they are the stuff of art. I was hardly the first to recognize this.

Katherine Dunham, the dancer and choreographer, contemporary of Martha Graham, spent years in Haiti studying these dances.

Q:Yet even the mention of vodou makes people nervous, no?

A  Yes, we have Hollywood to thank for those distortions and prejudices.

But imagine what it was to be a young boy who loved to dance, as I was in Haiti far more than 25 years ago. The only options available to that young man in Haiti then was classical ballet. This, while my body was hungry to express so much more. Of course I turned to my own traditions to try to understand my place and my heritage.

Q: By now your company has become something of a legend in South Florida. How does it feel to return again and again to the Arsht Center?

A: It  is nothing less than a homecoming. After all, it was thanks to a fundraiser sponsored by the Arsht Center that we had the monies to find a new home for Ayikodans after the 2010 earthquake. Not only that, the Arsht Center has been and continues to be keenly aware of what is happening in the arts in Haiti. Thanks are not enough to their commitment to spread the word.

Ayikodans performance in the Carnival Studio Theater of Ziff Ballet Opera House at the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami, on February at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday at 2:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.; and Sunday at 5:00 p.m. Tickets cost $25; www.arshtcenter.org.

Photo credit: Carl Juste

This preview also appears in Miami New Times.

This article first appeared in Miami New Times

The wunderkind is back in Miami with yet another world debut.

Liam Scarlett, that is. He who at age 26 has been appointed artist-in-residence at London’s Royal Ballet Company.

He who was also the choreographer of  “Viscera,” a ballet commissioned for the Miami City Ballet in 2012, which was received enthusiastically, even reverently, not only by Miami audiences but by dance critics from all over the globe who came here to see it.

A hard act to follow? We shall see. Scarlett and the Miami City Ballet will debut “Euphotic” this weekend at the Arsht Center. How does he compare the two works? “’Viscera’ was introverted,” Scarlett says. “Even as it pulsated, there was a hush about it. ‘Euphotic’ is its polar opposite; it is bigger in every way, more extroverted.”

Scarlett took time to settle on precisely the right title for his new work. He decided on ‘Euphotic,’ “the name for the uppermost layer of water,” he says, “where there is a play of light.” For Scarlett, this new work is about fluidity above all else. “The pulsing from ‘Viscera’ is still there, but the dance itself has become so fluid, it is almost angelic.” Again and again he talks of working with “this feeling of moving through liquid, where every movement is a continuum… I am fascinated by the kaleidoscope” he says, “by seamless transitions.”

His work with Miami City Ballet is part of a continuum as well. “I picked up with the company exactly where we left off the last time with ‘Viscera’” he says. “I know the strengths of these dancers. I know how to highlight them.” And according to several members of the company, he knows how to push them — and then push further. Scarlett himself describes this company as “dancers who want to be created on. As dancers having the drive, intellect and artistic understanding” to allow him just that.

Quite a gift for a choreographer who chooses to work so close to the bone with his dancers. Scarlett develops a piece with, rather than for, a dance company. Before he arrives to work with a company, he will have been caught, intrigued, by a piece of music. Then he waits. He works with the dancers. He sees what may happen after weeks of work.

‘Euphotic,’ for instance.

This debut is part of a program entitled Tradition and Innovation, which includes major pieces by George Balanchine. Small wonder since Scarlett considers the master of American dance – and all its trademark musicality — one of his major influences.

After the extraordinary success of “Viscera,” is Scarlett a bit apprehensive as he waits for the curtain to rise on “Euphotic?” “While I was elated by the reception ‘Viscera’ received, one always feels called to do something better,” Scarlett says. “Still, I don’t think I would be human if I weren’t anxious. Then I lose myself watching these dancers.”

“Euphotic” takes place on Friday and Saturday at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. at the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Miami in the Ziff Ballet Opera House,, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami. It moves to the Broward Center for the Performing Arts in the Au-Rene Theater, 201 S.W. 5^th Ave., Ft. Lauderdale on Jan. 18 at 8:00 p.m., Jan. 19 at 2:00 and 8:00 p.m., and Jan. 20 at 2:00 p.m.. Tickets range from $20 to $175; www.miamicityballet.org.

This weekend the Arsht Center will present a unique performance, Light/The Holocaust & Humanity Project, choreographed by Artistic Director Stephen Mills and performed by his Austin City Ballet Company. The work is a culmination of a three-month community and education collaboration in Miami-Dade – it’s both a dance and an exploration of the origins of discrimination, of trauma, of genocide, and of the ultimate redemptive response. In this singular performance, 31 community partners set out to fight bigotry through education and the arts.

We spoke with Mills about this one-of-a-kind experiment.

Q. Your work has spanned genres and subjects, from re-imaginings of Shakespeare to classic dances of Broadway, to work with important Flamenco artists. How did you find your way into this story?

A. Like so many of us, after 9/11, I had to understand my world in a new way. I had to ask myself what was my purpose as a dancer and a dance maker. I needed to find a way to connect more deeply both with myself and with my practice of  dance. I spoke with friends about this and one suggested that I might find some insight if I considered my questions in the light of the Holocaust. She told me then of one woman, living not far from us in Texas, a woman who had survived time in three camps. She asked if this might be the story I had felt I needed to go deeply enough into my work.

My first reaction was absolutely not. I feared I would be trespassing. I feared I might unwittingly be disrespectful or even cause more pain. This was not my story to tell. I had no right. Not only was I not Jewish; I had no family member who had fought in World War 11.

It was [the survivor] Naomi Warren who convinced me to go ahead. ‘People who have a voice,’ she said, ‘people who have a platform can lead the way towards discussion of all that happened. Art can be a way in.’

Q. Your work has been presented in various cities. Each time a great many community partners have become involved, presenting events focusing not only on Holocaust education but a wide range of human and civil rights. Some might say this diminishes the Holocaust.

A. Initially that worried me. It is impossible to measure the suffering of the Holocaust. It is without end. When once again I turned to Naomi, she said “Genocide didn’t stop in 1946.”

Now I see these various partnerships as concentric circles and am very grateful for each of them.

Q. This work is Naomi’s story. Can the audience expect to see overt violence and Nazi iconography? What should the audience expect when they enter the theater?

A. My hope is that the audience would come to the theater expecting a powerful experience. My hope is that they would come with an open mind and heart.

They will see a dance that takes place in a non-descript setting. The costumes and the music are all very modern. I chose to present the work like this as a way of saying all that the work chronicles persists. Still, there is no violent activity in the work. I was determined not to present a perpetrator. The dance is pared down. One doesn’t need for there to be violent activity for an audience to feel the presence of evil.

As preparation for creating this work, I spent a great deal of time studying the archival photographs of the Holocaust. As you know, the Nazis kept meticulous records. I came across one photograph of a large group of women standing in the woods. Although the gas chambers of Buchenwald were obscured by the trees the women, although the capturers had been silent, the women knew they were waiting: next it would be their turn in the chambers. The stories of the Holocaust were in their eyes. The stories were contained in the gestures of those women, in the way they held their bodies. Those are the stories I worked with in this work.

Since the perpetrator is not present, since the audience sees only the response to the terror in the eyes and movement of the dancers,  the audience itself comes to feel like the perpetuator.

My hope is that the audience would come away from the performance thinking of how important it is to effect change, to ask something of themselves.

Light/The Holocoust & Humanity Project takes place on the stage of the Ziff Ballet Opera House at the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., on Saturday at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday at 7:00 p.m.; tickets cost $35 to $90; www.arshtcenter.org.

This article appears in Miami new Times Cultist.

Photo: Tony Spielberg

It was a sunny, hot and extremely humid Saturday afternoon, Labor Day weekend, and a crowd had started to gather at the Euclid oval on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach. There were a few people who may have been there from previous word-of-mouth knowledge, but the majority of the ever-increasing crowd was just trying to see what the fuss was all about.

In the raised ground with fake turf, “center stage” was four chairs facing west. A conductor in a silver-grey suit came out and stood on the block, then lifted his baton to the applause of the audience now eager for what was to come next. An orchestra of strings, brass and woodwinds chimed in, playing Beethoven’s Ode to Joy while dancers performed around the oval. The performance also included choral singers, a gospel choir and a musical arrangement, and the piece itself combined jazz, gospel and African drum beats. At the climax, the performers shot confetti strings, followed by young men with signs that read, “You have just experienced a Random Act of Culture.”

The event — sponsored by The Knight Foundation — was the last official act of its kind in Miami, celebrating the more than 1,000 surprise performances in two years that have appeared in cities across the nation. In the midst of this organized chaos was a young man dressed in jean shorts and t-shirt, darting between the performers and giving directions. He is Pioneer Winter, who served as the dance coordinator for this event and choreographer for the contemporary dancers, the AileyCamp Miami alumni.

This was but one of the many projects the young dancer/teacher/choreographer/artist has recently been involved with. Not just the aforementioned AileyCamp Miami that took place at the Arsht Center, but also his performances of Mother-Son(days) last spring with Ana Bolt, his recent performance with Ana Miranda, the Aire Dance Company, and Carl Ferrari and Gypsy Cat in Soulé.

Now, he’s opened the Miami Dance Studio off of Biscayne Boulevard, on N.E. 2nd between 24th and 25th streets – a studio rehearsal space and a collaboration center. We caught up with Winter during a rare free moment at the studio, the Friday evening before the Miami Beach event.

The space is an open, sunlit and airy structure with a high vaulted ceiling, ceiling-to-floor-length windows and the requisite wall of mirrors. With studio owner and partner Jared Sharon in company, we sat down to talk about Winter’s work, vision and journey.

A graduate with both a Bachelor’s in Psychology and a Master’s in Public Health, Winter also trained in conservatory and summer programs with the Miami City Ballet and North Carolina School for the Arts. Like many artists who try to find balance with their freelance artistic pursuits and personal subsistence, Winter pursued an academic track out of a need for stability.  Although he danced and taught locally during and after his studies, he took a job in marketing at Care Resource Miami, a comprehensive community health-care center and resource for HIV/AIDS treatment, prevention and support. But marketing was not his niche. He was more emotionally invested in the daily aspects of people living with HIV/AIDS.

In his Reaching the Surface, an evening-length work with artists either infected or affected by HIV, Winter aimed to “reduce the stigma” of what it is to live with HIV. A mixed-media piece that involved narrative and spoken-word, it sought to express a “universal language that creates awareness for a greater sense of community,” he says.  Winter does not seek to use art to educate per se, as it is not his intention to be “preachy” or dogmatic; but he says that art “is a way to reach people as an instrument of  positive social change.”

When discussing his collaborative work with Sharon at the Bass Museum, 42: A Stonewall Prospective (the Stonewall riots of 1969 were considered a turning point in the gay rights struggle), Winter talks about the idea of the human search for identity and what it means to “grow up” on the foundations laid by generations before him. The struggles and achievements of previous history-pioneers make it easier for subsequent generations to grow and explore their true selves and identity. Otherwise, he acknowledges, that “the search for identity can become unhealthy and stunted” or even be “unsafe when there is no social support” for young gay and bisexual men and women.

His work Mother-Son(days) was a more personal piece, with a narrative taken directly from his and his mother’s diaries. We asked him for details on his process in working with Ana Bolt, and with dancers in general.  “I try to match my work with [the dancer’s] strategy. Some dancers need to know detailed direction — some need to know the intent. With Ana I gave her the movement and then stopped giving instruction.” Although he allows for dancers to be intuitive and to add their voice to his work, he does give critiques. Winter describes a moment where Bolt was posed on the floor and as she crossed her legs at the ankle and pointed her feet, he remarked, “Ana, that looks like the crucifixion!”

Winter says that in rehearsals he does not like to interrupt a movement to give directions. “I don’t want to ruin the focus and I save corrections for the end.” He respects the precious reality of a performer living in the moment of the art — something he hopes dancers translate onto the stage from the rehearsal process. “Stage presence is the real vehicle to bring an audience into a dance. The honesty of the performance is crucial.”

Although his themes have included social change or a support for individual identity, he understands that his work may not always appeal to everyone.  “But I hope the audience can appreciate the work in some way…that they can make their own meaning even if they didn’t get what I tried to express, but they make of it something else.” Then, he adds almost with a wink, “sometimes, though, it is fun to confuse them.”

While working at Care Resource, Winter was also teaching and doing administrative duties at a local studio in North Miami Beach. What, he thought, “would I do differently if I had my own studio?” We’ll soon see. Future projects for Pioneer Winter include a choreographed piece for TEDxMIA during a residence at the New World Symphony on Oct. 23, and a new quartet with interactive installation for Art Live Fair, benefiting Lotus House Women’s Shelter, Oct. 26 to 28; go to pioneerwinter.org and miadancestudio.com for more details.

This article first appeared in Miami New Times

Argentina’s Independence Day falls this month, and Miami offers a chance to celebrate it with an explosion of tango.

This Saturday night at the Manuel Artime Theater, Miami’s Tango Times Dance Company will present “Tango Baroque,” as 12 dancing couples glide through the history of tango. The dancers will celebrate tango’s beginnings in the loneliness of the pampas; they will move on to the golden era of Carlos Gardel; and then the renaissance that was Astor Piazzolla.

The show, however, won’t stop there. The Tango Times dancers will be accompanied by the classic tango quartet — pianist, violinist, bassist and of course, bandolin player. This quartet will be directed by Maestro Anibal Berraute, the pianist, arranger and producer behind many of the Americas most celebrated recent tango concerts and recordings. Berraute is a composer as well. The Tango Times is proud to include some of his work in their Artime performance.

Even the most jaded Porteno would probably eventually admit that other rhythms besides tango have a significant place in Argentina’s cultural heritage. The evening’s performance will include a glimpse of the country’s folkloric tradition, one perhaps best exemplified by the late Mercedes Sosa’s booming voice and percussion.

Anyone who knows of The Tango Times Dance Company can expect that no matter the genre presented, the dances will be infused with an athleticism usually associated with modern dance and ballet. There will be moments throughout the evening when one will see the kinds of extravaganzas, including lifts, usually reserved for the best of “Dancing with the Stars.”

But the Tango Times Dance Company is about more than dance. Like any tango worth its salt, it is also a love story. Two tango dancers arrived in Miami in 2000. They were coming from Buenos Aires. Neither knew the other. One of them, Oscar Caballero, had visited Miami years before with an Argentine dance company, fallen in love with the air and the sea of this place and vowed he would return here to live. Fifteen years later, he did that. Just in time to meet Roxana Garber. A dancer with a bounty of classical training who had recently lost her mom, Roxana had decided it was time to move closer to Miami relatives. At a tango performance one night, a MC asked the two to dance together. That dance was their first meeting. Now, 12 years later, they have three children, as well as a dance company — Tango Times Dance Company has performed throughout the U.S.— and even a school that welcomes everyone from those taking their first tango steps to professional dancers. Roxana puts it this way: “Oscar finished the story of tango in me.” The Tango Times Dance Company is also the story of maturing city. When Oscar and Roxana first made their home in Miami, “there were a handful of places, if that, where one could go to dance tango,” according to Oscar. Now, one can attend milongas — the seemingly endless circle of tangeros and tangeras – every night of the week.

In the meantime, those three kids, the children of the founders of Tango Times Dancers, are having a great time dancing all around the house.

“Tango Baroque” begins at 8:30 p.m. on  Saturday, at the Manuel Artime Theater, 900 S.W. 1^st St., Miami; tickets range from $20-35. Call 305-266-3029, or go to manuelartimetheater.com.

At the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, visiting and local collaborators are polishing the glitter for a decadent performance party called “The Donkey Show.” A loose interpretation of the Shakespearian drama, “The Donkey Show” reimagines “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at legendary nightclub Studio 54. Flashback to the 1970s… the king and queen of the Fairies, Titania and Oberon, have left the forest to rule the dance floor. And Puck’s love potions — we can imagine what that might be.

“The Donkey Show” premiered Off-Broadway in New York in 1999, and has since been staged in other U.S. and in European cities. For the Miami version, “The Donkey Show” creative team along with Arsht Center organizers decided to recast most of the characters with local talent. Rosie Herrera, one of Miami’s Miami star choreographers and performing artists, was brought in as artistic adviser.

Herrera was born for this project. Raised by a father whom she calls “the Cuban John Travolta,” Herrera’s been learning the hustle since she was a kid. She also grew up in Miami’s nightclub scene, and is now running her own critically acclaimed dance company. When it comes to “The Donkey Show,” she’s not telling all — the show’s best secrets are still hush-hush. But she did give us some inside stories.

What is “The Donkey Show” all about?

Love! I think it’s all about love, and there’s many layers to that. And the reason that’s so clear is because disco music is so much about celebrating freedom and love. That comes through the lyrics and the rhythms. I was a high school thespian, and so I’m familiar with the story. Somehow putting it in a disco seemed to elevate that aspect. As a regular Shakespeare play, the story doesn’t quite resonate with me in that way.

What was your involvement in the show?

I came in as a creative consultant to help contextualize the play within the Miami nightclub scene — having my specific experience in the nightclub industry. I was also there to help them with the casting — the majority of the cast is from my company [Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre]. In terms of choreography, basically for Miami the formula is double. Double everything! Double the cast, double the amount of numbers. So there are some original numbers by me. And restaging and recontextualizing choreography that already exists, transplanting it onto our dancers and our space.

What aspects of the Miami night scene come through?

Well… Miami has a nightclub scene. I remember conversations with the creative team at the beginning about what in other cities might be risqué or really exciting. But for Miamians it would be boring. Go-go dancers in Miami are dancing in pasties. It’s like, “big deal.” Having been a go-go dancer myself for many years, I can say it’s nothing out of the ordinary.

For Miami, we expanded the cast and created new characters. And because of the specific skill set of the Miami performers, it completely shifted the way that we thought of some of the characters. For example, we were searching for a main character, Tatania, the queen of the forest, and we ended up with this group of girls at our audition who were aerialists, contortionists, singers, actresses, dancers, and the sky was the limit in what we could do.

And the set is amazing! It is a feast for the eyes. I always say that if you could see the inside of my heart, it would look like Miami’s “Donkey Show.”

This must have been a really exciting project for you.

It was great. It was a learning experience. Being predominantly a director now, and a choreographer, it’s difficult for me to step back and not want to take complete creative control. But these are people that have been doing the show for 10 years. And so they understand it in such a profound way. It was my job to ask them to think of it in a different way. Sometimes they said “that’s great” and sometimes they said “absolutely not.” So it was a huge challenge.

In the end I’m very happy. Not just because of the outcome, but because of the experience as a whole, and the opportunity to work with such a kick-ass group of performers. We just kick everyone’s ass! The dancers that come here… there’s something special. I don’t know if it’s the way that the sunlight and the ocean breeze inform the body and the movement, but there’s something really special here. And it’s just about damn time that somebody said let’s shine a spotlight on it!

“The Donkey Show” at the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Ziff Ballet Opera House, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami, opens July 18^. Previews begin July 13^; tickets start at $45. For various performances with starting times ranging from 7:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., go to arshtcenter.org.

This article was first published online in the Miami New Times.