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.

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

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 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

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.

On Friday the Bernice Steinbaum Gallery will be hosting the Miami debut of Simone Sobers Dance and their newest work, Rogue. Company director Sobers – who trained here in Miami and is based in New York — describes the 45-minute installation piece as an exploration of the “wild, rebellious, and sensual” natures of being a woman and of the tension created in this study. Sobers and company members Epiphany Davis and Titilayo Derricotte perform the work set to a musical score by Steve Reich, Alva Noto, Byetone, AIR, and Kangding Ray.

For her part, gallery founder Bernice Steinbaum, who will be closing the gallery for good come July, is known for her pioneering efforts that have supported women artists, artists of color, and mid-career artists. The gallery’s focus echoes that of Simone Sobers’. Sobers’ own eclectic and international background informs the company’s mission to present work globally and increase the visibility of minority women. We asked Sobers to expound on the mission and vision of her company.

Q: How much of your own experience motivates you to make women visible on a global scale?

Throughout my training and travels, I have noticed a lack of representation of women of color in the dance world as performers, choreographers, or in positions of power – such as artistic directors, producers, curators. I have also discovered a trend in women of color being downplayed or excused from these roles because of our physique and or inability to “blend in” with the rest of the cast, corps de ballet, or ensembles. Ironically, this form of artistic racism is exclusive to dance [creators] and not the audience of dance enthusiasts. I have found from my experiences of traveling abroad with my company that people are grateful, moved by, and relieved to see three strong black women on stage moving boldly and gracefully in their bodies.

Q: You have performed in the States and parts of Europe. Would you like to see the company perform in Asia, Africa, or even the Middle East? How do you think certain cultures in those continents, where maybe our Western sense of women’s equality are still a challenge, might receive your work?

I would love for the company to share our work in all parts of the world, including Asia, Africa, and the Middle East where there are very strong stereotypes about women of color as well as very different values placed on women’s role in society. In these settings I think my work could be viewed as shocking, intriguing, and provocative. My work tends to leave the audience curious about my intention and inspiration.

Q: Pioneering companies like Alvin Ailey, Harlem Ballet Theatre, and Ballet Hispanico created a visibility and gave a voice to people of color in classical and modern dance forms where once they were invisible or non-existent. Now decades later, even with all the evolution in social, political, and artistic arenas, why is it still important to give voice to women’s stories and specifically to give visibility to women of color? What are the stories you feel are still being ignored and need to be heard and seen?

Women of color have their own unique set of challenges based on the fact that we are a part of two minority groups that both have a long history of discrimination and oppression. Fast forward into present day, although we have come a long way, most of those issues are still present in how women of color are presented in the media, our status in the workplace, and most importantly in the development of our relationships with each other. Although opportunities have and are being created to be visible on a stage, I think there needs to be opportunities for women of color to share who they really are, how their past has an affect on their present spirit, and what it means to be a woman of color today. We are not just that one idea that is presented in the media — but a combination of many things that together makes up something eccentrically beautiful.

Q: Your company’s focus is on sharing “eclectic, transformative, vulnerable, and celebratory stories of women through the art of dance.” The word “vulnerable” can imply leaving oneself exposed or susceptible to harm, but its more positive attribute opens one to taking risks and chances leading to deeper feeling, experience, and growth. What does this word mean to you and how does it translate into the stories you tell?

True and raw beauty lies in being vulnerable. Vulnerability allows someone else to have access to every part of you — virtues, vices, and habits — the complete composition of who you are. This is where real sharing takes place and what people can grasp and relate to. In my work I aim to tap into this vulnerability in both my dancers and the audience. A story is an honest recollection and I hope in my work my honesty is at the forefront.

Simone Sobers Dance’s Miami debut of ‘Rogue’ will be performed at Bernice Steinbaum Gallery on Friday at 7:00 p.m, 3550 North Miami Ave., Miami;  a $10 donation is suggested at admission.

Port-au-Prince based Ayikodans returned to Miami this weekend for the second year in a row. And choreographer Jean Guy Saintus, with his unrivaled corps of dancers, proved once again that Haiti is home to immense and sophisticated culture worthy of the world stage.

Ayikodans is an ideal of global artistic exchange. Saintus has mastered the potential of contemporary European and American dance while remaining loyally embedded in the traditional African influence that animates his country. Ayikodans uses almost none of the repetitive patterning found in folkloric dance, which Saintus dismisses as touristic. Instead, their elaborate spatial and movement compositions, defined by elegant lighting design and set pieces, were highly original.

As contemporary and culturally expansive as Ayikodans may be, their performance was intimately bound to the Haitian experience. Anyone who visits Haiti is imprinted by the sounds of the country. Music is everywhere — from compa on loudspeakers to roaming rara bands to the singing and drumming of Vodoun. At the Arsht, Ayikodans foregrounded both recorded and live Haitian music. Their new piece, Danse de L’Araignee, represents a spider spirit from Vodoun called Gede Zarenyen. Here, within fully developed contemporary dance language, Saintus planted the dynamics of traditional Haitian dance and music. Danse de l’Araignee began with a long interval of pitch black, colored by a high wailing voice. The singer was James Germain, a man with a humble but captivating presence. Over the course of the piece, Germain traded sound space with a group of impressive traditional drummers who sometimes shook with their own intensity. Alternately sharp and driving rhythms punctuated the dancers’ bodies as they pulsed through a stream of vivid visual configurations.

Distinctly Haitian emotional, political, and spiritual landscapes were also present in full. In particular, the heartbreak of the 2010 earthquake and its aftermath was keenly felt in Anmwey Ayiti Manman. Miami first saw this piece in 2011, but last year’s version was decorated by refined lighting effects. This year, the piece in its new form was almost unrecognizable. Aesthetic beauty was stripped out and the black box was left essentially bare. Two walls, papered with newspaper pages, stood on either side of the stage and the entire performance space was lined by razor wire. The performers were not so much dancing as expressing pain. They described physical wounds, but also betrayal by national and international political players and a crisis of faith in the earth itself. The audience was presented with anguish, raw, and unadorned. But finally, Anmwey Ayiti Manman revealed the persistence of the will to live. While this piece recalls tragic circumstances, its existence as a work of art is one kind of triumph against disaster.

In a subtler link to Haitian culture, every performer demonstrated a total and almost spiritual dedication to the artistic vision behind the performance. Such devotion points towards a high level of creative commitment but its particular tone bears a relationship to Vodoun. When devotees are possessed during a ceremony, their bodies are totally given to the expression of sacred spirit, and the individual’s own movements, physical limits, even ways of talking are transformed. In the same way, the Ayikodans performers seemed to have given every cell of their bodies over to the dance, and their athleticism was so complete that it was almost superhuman. On stage, performers jumped high in the air and then landed on the floor in complex poses like some kind of animal. They rippled from their heads and shoulders down to their feet while their hands and faces, even their gazes, were intensely focused. There was nothing unconscious about their movement — they were each entirely present in the performance, not as individual egos but as a cohesive group of high-caliber performers in service of an idea.

Given the quality of this performance, it was inconceivable that only a handful of people would see the show in the Arsht Center’s small Carnival Theater, even with a sold-out crowd. Recently, the company was saved from the brink of dissolution and now, with a broader base of support including Miami-based backers, the company may well be able to take their work to larger audiences around the world. This is the kind of exposure they deserve.

Photo: Manny Hernandez

This article first appeared in Miami New Times

December 23, 2010 The day after the festivities have worn off and your double vision has finally disappeared, you might wonder what you should do next to commemorate the new year. It’s schmaltzy, but how about the time-honored Austrian hangover cure, the Strauss waltz? Even a neophyte to classical music will recognize the sashaying, sybaritic sound of “Tales From the Vienna Woods” or “The Blue Danube,” two of the most popular and familiar musical compositions in the world. For the 12th year, the Strauss Symphony of America wants to help you get your new year on with conductor Bernhard Schneider, a descendent of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire; soprano Melanie Holliday; tenor István Kovácsházi; and dancers from the National Ballet of Hungary heralding in the year 2011. We promise these waltzes, polkas, and operettas are easier to swallow than the handful of antacids you’ve downed all weekend.
Sun., Jan. 2, 7 p.m., 2011

Originally published in the Miami New Times in December 2010.