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.

When performances are “based on” something, we all get that the inspiration is real, the interpretation not recognizable. Then there is the up-coming concert from the Montreal dance company Compagnie Marie Chouinard, which will feature a truly novel way of re-imagining an original work. As one of the last of Tigertail Productions offerings this season, the piece “Henri Michaux: Mouvements” is both avant-garde and accessible. It is based on a 1951 French book, which combined poetry and 64 pages of India ink drawings, black-and-white images that were, according to the choreographer Chouinard, a “feast of bursting lines, spots and kaleidoscopic arms,” which she then translated to a dance for the stage. True to the source material, the dancers are all dressed in black, the stage is white, and they morph into silhouettes – they are animated drawings, dancers, and moving art works all at once. Not surprisingly, Chouinard — who establisher her company in 1990 and has won numerous awards since then — has a background in set, costume and lighting design as well, which all comes out in her complete and stunning creations. “Mouvements” comes to the Colony Theatre (1040 Lincoln Rd., Miami Beach) on Friday and Saturday, at 8:30 p.m., with an opening each night of “Etude for Duets”; cost is $25, $35 $50; tigertail.org, www.mariechouinard.com.

See also the interview with marie Chouinard in the Miami Herald, www.miamiherald.com/2013/04/11/3338438/poems-drawings-inspired-new-piece.html

Traditions are kept alive by constant change. The roots music of the 21^st century is being created as much with electric guitars, sequencers and laptops as with drums and flutes.

That’s one of the ideas behind The Rhythm Foundation’s Heineken TransAtlantic Festival, coming this weekend, which this year features as headliners the Argentine-Uruguayan electro-tango group Bajofondo and the Colombian electro-tropical Bomba Estéreo, as well as the duo Zuzuka Poderosa & Kush Arora, Miami’s own trio The Hongs, Krisp, Beat Machines, the neo-funk boogie big band Psychic Mirrors and DJ Mr Pauer.

“Simón [Mejía] started the group with the idea of mixing roots music and electronic music before I joined,” says Liliana “Li” Saumet, Bomba Estéreo singer and lyricist, speaking from the band´s bus on route to a show in San Francisco. Saumet was born in Santa Marta, on the Atlantic coast of Colombia, a place with deep African traditions. “It’s not that I bring the folklore to Bomba Estéreo, the idea was there. It’s just that when I sing, you can hear la costa because that’s what comes natural to me. That sound is what I grew up with.”

In fact, Saumet says her singing approach refers to that of the cantadoras, the troubadour women in Afro-Colombian culture who, in their singing, preserve and pass on the stories of their people. “They are my reference, especially La Niña Emilia [1932-1993],” says Saumet. “And they have a distinct way of singing, very deep but also without a musical training, and that’s what came out when I started singing. It’s the singing of my roots. That and rap are my main references.”

Now, in her work with Bomba Estéreo, Saumet might be also updating and keeping alive the cantadora tradition.

Bomba Estéreo was founded by Mejía, a visual artist turned full time bassist, programmer and producer, and released its first recording in 2006. It drew from traditional music, most obviously cumbia, but also DJ culture, electronic and hip hop. The result was both substantive and danceable, fun. Since then, the group became a hit at festivals — and SXSW and has just released Elegancia Tropical, its  third recording.

They are textbook headliners for the TransAtlantic Festival, which The Rhythm Foundation started in 2003 as a way to connect with new audiences as well as celebrate the traditional.

It was an “interesting time in Miami,” says Laura Quinlan, director of The Rhythm Foundation.  “It was the time of the Internet boom and new media and there were all these really cool people moving in from Latin America, interesting, creative people who were setting up companies, business and art galleries. It was a real revitalization in the city. But our audiences were not reflecting that. As an organization we were not connecting with this renaissance.

“And there was also this new sound I personally loved, which was the mix of electronica and World Music,” says Quinlan. “Now this sound has become kind of standard but I remember the first time I heard [the Tijuana-based] Nortec Collective, the birth of Latin-tronica, I couldn’t believe it. Now it’s not so shocking, you hear it in car commercials — but I still love it.”

Since its first edition, the TransAtlantic Festival has featured artists and groups such as Seu Jorge, DJ Da Lua, Bossacucanova, Chambao, Juana Molina, Ojos de Brujo, Aterciopelados, Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, Seun Kuti and Egypt 80, and Nortec Collective.

“When you are programming and running a cultural organization you have to keep your circle open, you have to stay open to new sounds, new collaborators, new partners or your impact in the community starts to shrink,” says Quinlan. “That openness has always been central to TransAtlantic.”

Meanwhile, Saumet sees the work, and success, of Bomba Estéreo as part of a larger picture.

“It’s something that’s happening not only in Colombia but México, Perú, Venezuela, Argentina, all throughout Latin America,” she says. “We are looking to our roots, to our culture not just rock and we coming to what is ours. And I think the perspective has changed too. We used to look North, to the Anglo world. Now I think the Anglo world is also looking at us.”

The 11th annual Heineken TransAtlantic Festival features Bajofondo, with an opening set by The Hongs, on Friday at 7:00 p.m. Bomba Estéreo, Zuzuka Poderosa & Kush Arora, and an opening set by Krisp, take the stage on Saturday at 7:00 p.m. At the North Beach Bandshell, 7275 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach; tickets cost $23 for each night, or $35 for the weekend (there will also be a launch and a wrap pert, free); 305-672-5202 ; transAtlanticfestival.com.

This preview also appears in the Miami New Times.

In a city sometimes so seemingly separated along ethnic lines as Miami, one would hardly think that Cubans and Haitians have anything in common. But they do, and much more than they know. The Creole Choir of Cuba, in concert this Sunday in North Miami Beach, is proof of that.

Because, in what is perhaps one of the least-known chapters of the histories of Cuba and Haiti, waves of immigrants from Haiti made their way into Cuba, particularly in the central area of the island known as Camagüey, and contributed to the rich tapestry of Cuban music.

Cuban music in various incarnations, both from the island and from the diaspora, is at the center of another annual edition of Global Cuba Fest (being held through April 6), a musical series put together by the not-for-profit cultural organizations FUNDArte and Miami Light Project in South Florida.

“Haitians see all this with gratitude. They really appreciate that a group of Cubans is promoting this music,” says Emilia Díaz Chávez, the 61-year-old musical director of Grupo Vocal Desandann (as the group is known in Cuba), and one of its co-founders, after the Choir’s show in Tallahassee on Feb. 25, part of an East Coast tour of the U.S. to promote their second album, Santiman (Real World Records).

“The Cubans, some Cubans, wait for the moment when we play Cuban music, but it gives us a great satisfaction to know that, even though they’re just waiting for that music, they have heard what we have done before, and at the end of the show, they have enjoyed a type of music that perhaps by their own volition they would not be inclined to listen to.”

Haitian academic Jean-Robert Cadely says that Haitians also have embraced the Choir. “The group is highly regarded by the Haitian community,” according to Cadely, associate professor at the Modern Languages Department and African & African Diaspora Studies Program at Florida International University. “The reason is that Haitians view the group as a part of their heritage. They strongly appreciate that the group formed by Cubans of Haitian origin is carrying on and developing Haitian cultural traditions in Cuba.”

Although The Creole Choir of Cuba emerged in 1994, during Cuba’s “Special Period” of extreme belt-tightening following the collapse of the Soviet Union, which ended all the help that the Soviets had been providing to their Caribbean ally, the legacy of the Haitians in Cuba goes back hundreds of years.

Haitians were first brought to Cuba as slaves during the late 18^th century, when their French masters panicked and escaped during the uprisings that would bring independence to Haiti a few years later, in 1804, making it the first independent nation of Latin America and the Caribbean, and the first black-led republic in the world. Later on, and still in the 19^th century, Haitians arrived in search of work in the sugar cane fields and in coffee plantations. Finally, in the 20^th century and up to around 1958, they fled the terror of dictator François “Papa Doc” Duvalier. These migrations became a trickle after the 1959 Cuban revolution.

But by then, something unique had taken place: generations of Haitians were born on Cuban soil, and although Cubans, they never forgot where their ancestors came from.

That legacy is what the 10 members (this time nine are touring) of The Creole Choir of Cuba carry through in its myriad traditional songs from the old motherland, as well as in their original compositions, sung in Creole but accompanied by Cuban musical instruments.

The Creole Choir of Cuba, part of Global Cuba Fest 2013, Sunday at 7:00 p.m., North Beach Bandshell, 7275 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach. General admission: $10. Info: 305-576-4350; www.fundarte.us.

 Also as part of Global Cuba Fest is a documentary film, directed by a local young and upcoming Miami-based filmmaker, Randy Valdes, about contemporary Cuban music and its diaspora. This is the kickstarter campaign the director of the film created in hopes to further fund his project: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1339086624/global-cuba-the-documentary?ref=home_location.

This preview also appears in 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.

Alvin Ailey Dance Theater’s performance at the Arsht Center Friday night began and ended with a prayer, or rather with an electrifying, raging, shimmering, sassy, full-bodied reminder of what prayer can mean.

A work by choreographer Garth Fagan, of Lion King fame, opened the show. Fagan has often acknowledged his debt to African dance and music; that debt is all over this dance entitled “From Before.” It began with a series of solos, as dancer after dancer — each in a body suit of strong color —  moved through proscribed and ancient polyrhythmic movements, each said to call down a different aspect of the creator. This work was so accomplished, let alone downright beautiful, that at one point the audience could actually see the machetes said to be carried by one of the warriors of the godhead.

The dance went on as more and more similarly attired dancers came onto the stage. The music began to change and didn’t stop changing as the company moved in and out of kaleidoscopic patterns. At one moment the company was all calypso; soon the dancers appeared almost as Pac Man figures. Then bam: The sudden reappearance of sacred dance and rhythms. The poignancy was heart-stopping. Revelatory too, as we realize we have been seeing versions of those rhythms all along.

A short piece was followed by one of Miami’s own Robert Battle, who became artistic director of Alvin Ailey in 2011. Entitled “Strange Humors,” it was part comedy, part titanic struggle: a pas de deux for our time, more likely for any time. These dancers did their director proud. Angles were juxtaposed with the grace of round gestures; a string quartet and percussion wrestled as well, while two male dancers were driven by more feeling than they knew how to contain.

A compilation of works by choreographer Ohad Naharin followed intermission. Again, the company was masterful with kaleidoscopic moves in a work that went from Yiddish folk tunes to electronic rock to Vivaldi. Although the dancing itself never failed, the choreographic connection of the parts to the whole seemed at times tenuous.

The compilation began with images of Hebrew scholars; with stunning tenderness the dancers and the work managed to both embrace them and their tradition and suggest the hollowness let alone the danger of righteousness.

A short piece that followed seemed misplaced.

Then there was a pas de deux at least as full of feeling as the earlier “Mixed Humors.” Meanwhile dancers in black tuxes had come and gone. Now they were here in force and goofing on just about all social dances from the 1940s onward, from the skimmy to the chachacha to mambo, even to Bill Cosby’s signature moves. They were goofing on themselves too.
Wry can be a lot of fun, but it isn’t sublime. And this is a company that knows its sublime. Goofing continued as the dancers drew folks from the audience to the stage to dance along with them, or try to. Granted, if ever there was an audience pleaser, this was it. Still, this reviewer wonders why an audience would miss a chance to see more Alvin Ailey dancers dancing, and choose instead to cheer the chutzpah of audience members.

The evening closed, as almost all Alvin Ailey evenings close, with “Revelations,” the signature piece of the company’s founder. One might yearn to see Judith Jamison back in the role that became her signature as well, one might praise some of the dancers in this epic and fault others. Bottom line, the work is so beautiful, so full of joy and homage that we can only be glad this piece continues to have the place it does in our cultural canon.

Ailvin Ailey American Dance Theater at the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd continues through Sunday; for more details and tickets, call 305-949-6722; arshtcenter.org.

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.

To dance on a stage, most people would probably say that one must not only be well-trained, but able to do just that: dance.

The training part should be a given, of course, but the ability of who can dance and how to dance, is always much more complex, rewarding and surprising. That, and much more, is what dancers with disabilities can offer audiences who see them in events like South Florida’s own annual “danceable” project.

Produced and presented by Tigertail Productions and Florida Dance Association along with Inkub8, “danceable” enables people, whether with disabilities or not, to view dance as a powerful force and an essential, vital art form in our lives.

Witness that for yourself from Thursday through Saturday, when Miami-based choreographer, dancer, performance artist and director of the Inkub8 creative workspace (now in its third year) Heather Maloney, along with award-winning guest choreographer, filmmaker and UCLA professor Victoria Marks, embark on “danceAble 2013.”

Marks will lead off on Thursday with Action Conversation, an interactive workshop on the politics of citizenship, on differences, and on the “other,” and will present several short films on the two days following the workshop. Maloney will debut a work commissioned by Tigertail and Florida Dance Association, unquiet |body, on Friday and Saturday as well.

Both artists have known each for some time now, admired and followed each other’s careers, and have explored the ways in which disabilities can offer a completely unique and varied vision on life and on dance.

“From the perspective of a choreographer, my job is to work with the body, and every body has different capacities, regardless of the differences,” says Maloney, a 34-year-old Virginia native who came to Miami to study at the New World School of the Arts, then spent some time in New York City before returning to South Florida in 2006.

“We are also working with movement and the emotional content of that… It’s a process of discovering what possibilities exist,” considers Maloney, who in unquiet |body once again choreographed for John Beauregard, who dances in a wheelchair.

“This is my third project with him,” adds Maloney.

For Beauregard, who’s collaborated with danceAble from its beginnings, dance liberates him from his physical confines. “That [danceAble] was probably my first workshop,” says Beauregard, who will dance in Maloney’s piece with Joanne Barrett. “I’ve been paralyzed for like 29 years. I’ve always been with the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, and we’ve done some great things,” continues Beauregard. “But the dance…. The dance, overwhelmingly, is the biggest influence on my physical body. It’s magical to me. It’s taught me to listen to my body, and learn so much about it.”

Learning about different aspects of our bodies, of our aging, of our humanity, is something that also comes through in the three short films by choreographer Marks — Outside In, Men, and Veterans — that will be featured at danceAble. All three are works done with Margaret Williams, a U.K.-based film director and longtime collaborator of Marks.

“I like to challenge this idea of disability because, who’s to say what it is? Very often the concept of a disability is determined by our social landscape,” Marks tells artburstmiami from Los Angeles.

“Outside In is a project we did a long time ago, in 1993, with the Candoco Dance Company, which is an integrated dance company that includes dancers with and without disabilities,” says this 2005 Guggenheim winner and Fulbright scholar who led her Victoria Marks Performance Company in the 1980s, worked for three-and-half years as head of choreography at the London Contemporary Dance School, and in 1995 began teaching choreography at UCLA.

“The second film in that series is Men, and that one was done in the Canadian Rockies with a group of elderly men. And then the third one, Veterans, was a project working with a group of veterans who had put themselves in a combat-rehab program and were together for long time,” explains Marks.

Whether through the medium of film, as with these short films, or in the dance pieces she creates, Marks sees the power to deliver a transformative message to audiences. “This is really about how we comport ourselves, with one another. I’ve thought a lot about that, and I come to it through dancing,” Marks adds. “It would be great if I thought anything I made changed the way people thought and felt. I do feel like I work towards that. It is conscious in my mind, but I also feel that work really exists on a person to person level.”

“danceAble 2013” takes place at Inkub8, 2021 NW 1^st Pl., Miami. The workshop/discussion costs $10, on Thursday from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.; concerts cost $20 on Friday and Saturday at 8:30 p.m. Call 305-324-4377 or go to www.tigertail.org.

This article also appears online at Miami New Times.