The interactive performance, Cubalandia, which makes its U.S. debut this Friday as part of the Out in the Tropics festival, invites Cubans to embark on an almost impossible journey: a vacation in their own country.

Directed by Nelda Castillo, founder of the Cuban theater group El Ciervo Encantado (The Enchanted Deer) and performed by Mariela Brito — the two co-created the piece — Cubalandia begins with the character Yara La China raucously offering tours of Cuba in the country’s two currencies: the peso in which Cubans earn their salaries and the Cuban convertible peso (called the CUC), which is the necessary currency for food, travel, and hotels. Regular pesos earned don’t add up to many CUCs, so Cubalandia’s dark comedy sets out to expose the hypocrisy of this two-tiered economy.

When Lillian Manzor, professor and founding director of the Cuban Theater Digital Archive at the University of Miami, saw the performance in Cuba, she was surprised by its humor, a departure from the group’s more serious style: “It’s a performance where you laugh with the main character, but it’s a laughter that really makes you think about what’s going on. It reveals the way in which everyone participates in an underground economy.”

Cubalandia will be presented in Spanish with English supertitles at the Colony Theatre on Miami Beach. We recently had the opportunity to ask Castillo about Cubalandia and the group’s U.S. debut.

What was the inspiration for Cubalandia?

Cubalandia emerged at a time when the government announced the extension of self-employment in Cuba. Consequently, the self-employed individual as a figure burst onto the national scene. From there, we began a research process that culminated in the debut of the stage performance where there are two protagonists: Yara La China and the audience, where her potential clients are. She offers excursions in Cuba’s two monetary systems and in each package she recommends strategies for recuperating expenses.

Does Cubalandia use props?

To illustrate her itineraries, Yara chooses a fragmented map of the island. The map, called “Doble Moneda” [Double Currency], was created by artist Lazaro Saavedra. It serves as a backdrop and reference point throughout the entire performance.

Since the performance is a dialogue between Yara La China and the Cuban public, what adjustments have you made to present the work to Miami audiences?

I don’t believe we’ve had to make many adjustments since Miami audiences are — for obvious reasons — very familiar with the reality in Cuba. Cubans who live in Miami are not only knowledgeable about the issue, they are part of it. What might slip past European or Latin American audiences will be as clear for Miamians as it would be for audiences in Havana or Camagüey.

Is there anything else you would like audiences to know about Cubalandia?

We are very happy that this will be El Ciervo Encantado’s first performance in the United States. We have great hopes for our performances in Miami since, after Cuba, it’s the place where the work makes the most sense because it’s a reflection on issues for which all Cubans suffer.

This article first appeared in the Miami Herald

That’s so Miami is probably a good phrase to describe the kaleidoscopic quality of Out in the Tropics, a contemporary performing arts festival that brings to South Florida a wide range of cutting-edge gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer artists or works of art.

Now in its fourth edition, part of the beauty of Out in the Tropics – which runs from June 13 to June 16 – resides in that it appeals to the diverse groups that make up this city.  “This is not just a gay festival, but a festival that celebrates the GLTBQ culture,” explains Ever Chávez, founder and director of FUNDarte, the local non-profit artistic organization that presents Out in the Tropics. “We are not in the ghetto. We are provocative.”

Hence a lineup that includes:

-       A daring lesbian theater collective from Havana, El Ciervo Encantado (The Enchanted Deer), making its U.S. debut with the very satirical, very funny and very Cuban interactive performance Cubalandia, on Friday and Saturday.

-       Queer Cuban American performance art veterans from New York City, Carmelita Tropicana (Alina Troyano) and her sister filmmaker Ela, bringing their latest work, Post Plastica Miami 2013, on Saturday.

-       Wildly original actor, singer/songwriter, playwright, and gay stage wonder Taylor Mac, with his A 20^th Century History of Popular Music Abridged, on Friday.

-       And the all male, hunky, and versatile – from Vivaldi to Gaga – string and singing quartet Well-Strung, on Sunday.

“I like the idea that Out in the Tropics is open. I like openness,” says Carmelita Tropicana from her home in New York City.

“We are in a world that thinks differently about identity. What identity was in the ‘80s is no longer the same thing,” says the Havana-born artist. “We all want a huge public, but how do we continue to push the envelope, how do we continue making things that matter, saying something?”

Saying something is what Cubalandia does, making us marvel at how director Nelda Castillo and actress Mariela Brito get away with what they do: being critical of life in Cuba and of all its harsh realities via the hilarious, eye-popping role of Yara La China, personified by Brito.

“This is a piece with a lot of urgency,” says Castillo by phone from Cuba. “All our works have been strongly critical of the problems we face, but we have never been censored because they are serious and well-researched.”

Castillo sent Brito on a trip around Havana to find out what people were saying and how they were reacting to the changes of Raúl Castro. This led to the creation of a piece two years ago in which Yara La China becomes the audience’s tour guide on a journey across the island.

“We discovered that the subject, although it stems from a local angle, works well because the theme is universal. It’s the theme of surviving in difficult conditions,” adds Brito. “And people connect.”

Which in the end is what Out in the Tropics is all about: people connecting.

Out in the Tropics, June 13-16, at the Colony Theatre, 1040 Lincoln Rd., Miami Beach, and at the Miami Beach Cinematheque, 1130 Washington Ave., Miami Beach. Tickets at the Colony, $30 general admission; for times and tickets go to fundarte.us, ticketmaster.com; 305-674-1040.

Tickets at the Cinematheque: $10 general admission; mbcinema.com.

A version of this story asppears in the Huffington Post 

Rudi Goblen started break dancing 19 years ago. Since then he has become a dancer, actor, performing artist, and writer, performing with Teo Castellanos’ D-Projects and becoming a founding member of Octavio Campos’ Camposition Hybrid Theater Works and Rosie Herrera’s Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre.

A highly acclaimed b-boy, Goblen and his troupe Flipside Kings tour nationally and internationally. Goblen always seems to push his artistic boundaries, and in his latest one-man show, “PET,” he tries his hand at interactive theater.  Written and performed by Goblen and directed by Michael Yawney, “PET” debuts at the Miami Light Project’s Light Box this Friday and Saturday at 8:00 p.m. We caught up with Goblen to learn more about “PET.”

Q: What is “PET”?

A: “PET” is an interactive one-man dance theater show. The main character is a cured love addict who runs a support group for serial monogamists –people who keep jumping into relationships. Now that he is cured [Goblen says with a laugh] he runs the support group and helps other people who are brokenhearted get through their world of suffering and trauma.

Where did the name come from?

“PET” came from the idea that in relationships everyone plays the pet at some time or another. Once I started writing it, I realized the support group was going to be called PET, so I turned it into an acronym: Preventing, Educating, and Teaching Center for the Broken Hearted.

What is the show’s interactive element?

The show is set up as a support group, and the audience is the group. I’m not going to fully answer the question because I want to leave it as a surprise, but I can say there is a call and response element between the performer and the audience.

Rudi Goblen’s “PET, May 10 and 11 at 8:00 p.m., at the Miami Light project Light Box at Goldman Warehouse, 404 N.W. 26th St., Miami; www.miamilightproject.com

Although their last major stage production of the season, Songs of Spring, closed at The Colony two months ago, Dance Now! Miami remains actively in production and will host not one, but three significant events for the company this coming weekend.

First, on Fri., May 31, the company presents Dance Now! Miami: Dance Under the Stars, a gala performance and reception that will honor Miami Beach Mayor Matti Bower and benefit the Dance Now! Miami Summer Intensive Scholarship Fund. It will take place at the Miami Beach Botanical Garden. The gala welcomes back the recent Songs of Spring collaborators, the South Beach Chamber Ensemble accompanying performances by past scholarship recipients and students of the last three summer intensives.  Dinner is part of the program.

On Sat., June 1, the company continues to host the fifth in the series of Open Stage performances at the Little Haiti Cultural Arts Center, where the company is in residence. The evening will showcase new works and works-in-progress of five local choreographers and Dance Now! co-director Diego Salterini. Celeste Fraser Delgado, arts critic, associate professor of English and Humanities at Barry University, and Artburst founder, will mediate discussions on dance creation and process between the audience and the dance makers.

Then on Sun., June 2, with two afternoon performances, the company returns for its fourth annual collaboration with the Bass Museum, Ekphrasis. This year the company’s directors drew their inspiration from Eve Sussman’s 1960s video work, Rape of the Sabine Women, a contemporary reinterpretation of the Roman legend of antiquity. The piece will interweave movement with the galleries’ exhibits on the second floor.

Asked how the company is keeping up with all these events in the course of three days, replied, “Lets just say my eyes are bloodshot and we are crazy to have this much going on,” says Dance Now! co-director Hannah Baumgarten about the frenetic weekend. “But our amazing teamwork is second only to our creative juices flowing and we are looking forward to seeing bodies in motion.”

She continued to answer some questions about the various performances.

AB: What is it like to bring back past summer intensive scholarship recipients and work with them again for the gala?

HB: Bring back is a funny term… once we develop relationships with these kids they never really leave our lives. In fact, their texts desperate for advice and help come at all hours of the night. These young dancers continue their training at New World School for the Arts, so they are close and we are always glowing to see their growth.

Open Stage and the Summer Intensive are two milestones that have come as a result of the maturity and growth of the company and organization.

How much has having a permanent home at Little Haiti Cultural Arts Center made these events possible?

Neither of these initiatives could have occurred without the Little Haiti Center and its director Anita Darbonne. She is to us what Rebecca Harkness was to the Joffrey Ballet — she provided us a home, a place to flourish. In return we are doing our best to share this support with the dance community and to use it to educate youth.

Unlike in the past, this year’s Ekphrasis work will center on one individual piece of work. How do you come to select the pieces you will work with and how far in advance do you start researching the pieces?  

It is always a lottery with the [Bass] Museum — we can only start to work once the exhibition is up, and this varies based on our calendar and theirs. We generally try to have about a month of time to visit the museum, decide what we are doing and start our research as choreographers, then about 3 weeks in the studio and the museum for rehearsal time with the dancers.

This is not a structured improv. This year we were overwhelmed and taken by the genius of Sussman’s work and decided to make one piece traveling through the five galleries of video art she created about the Rape of the Sabine Women. We enjoy both the challenge and the freedom to create work that is not constrained by traditional theater trappings. It will certainly be an intense ride this time.

Dance Now! Miami: Dance Under the Stars takes place on Fri., May 31 at the Miami Beach Botanical Garden, 2000 Convention Ctr. Dr., Miami Beach. VIP reception is at 8:00 p.m. followed by general reception at 9:00 p.m. Dinner and refreshments are served along with the live performance. General donations are $75 for single ticket holders and $100 for two attendees; VIP tickets are $125 for single ticket holders and $150 for two.

Miami Open Stage takes place at The Little Haiti Cultural Arts Center, 212 N.E. 59th Terr. in Miami, Sat., June 1 at 7:00 p.m. Admission is $10.

Ekphrasis 4, Sun., June 2 at 1:30 and 3:30 pm. at the Bass Museum, 2100 Collins Ave. Miami Beach. Performance runs approximately 60 minutes.  Admission is free with museum admission, which is $8 for general public, $6 for seniors and students, and free for residents.

The 2013 Summer Dance Intensive runs for two weeks at The Little Haiti Cultural Arts Center beginning on June 9th.  For enrollment and information please write to adarbonne@miamigov.com, or 305 960-2967.

For online admission purchases or more information go to dancenowmiami.org or call 305 975-8489.

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.

India Jazz Suites: The Fastest Feet in Rhythm pretty much spells out what will be going down Saturday at the South-Miami Dade Cultural Arts Center. The event is a high-speed hybrid of ancient Indian moves and contemporary tap, created by Kathak dance master Pandit Chitresh Das and celebrated tap dancer Jason Samuels Smith.

Many dancers talk of the energy in their work, but few understand it in the way Das does. The 69-year-old dancer’s pursuit of the sublime doesn’t stop with his deep devotion to Kathak, a classical Northern Indian dance form. He likes to mix things up, juxtaposing the rhythmic structures of his own tradition with others, opening up to improvisation, or as he calls it, a “conversation” between traditions.

Das’ partner in that conversation began his career at age 15 as understudy for Savion Glover in the Broadway production of Bring in ’Da Noise, Bring in ’Da Funk. Samuels Smith went on to win an American Choreography Award for a televised tribute to Gregory Hines, and founded Los Angeles’ first tap dance festival in 2003. He has tapped his way across prominent stages from London to Chicago, and has appeared as a guest performer on So You Think You Can Dance.

Das’ interest in other traditions began with a ritual fire ceremony six decades ago, marking the start of his training with guru Pandit Ram Narayan Misra, who was more interested in his student’s integrity than his dance technique. In the 18 years they worked together, Misra taught Das the two most important lines within Kathak dance: the sensuality of the Lucknow school and the fierce rhythm of the Jaipur school.

Das’ parents were celebrated dancers in the classical tradition. “It seemed there was never an end to the dancing at home,” he says. “It went on all day and all night. Much of it might have been considered ‘subversive,’ pro-Indian independence reworking of classical works.”

His parents’ dance school was among the most celebrated in Calcutta (now Kolkata), and their son was something of a prodigy. Das’ first public performance was with sitar genius Ravi Shankar.

“I grew up in a golden time,” Das says, referring to his apprenticeship as well as the promise of India in the 1950s. But by the 1970s, fewer Indians seemed interested in their own culture. “One needs to go out of one’s country to understand it,” his mother told him. And so, like so many other young people at the time, Das set out for Berkeley, Calif.

“Everything was going on, some of it wondrous,” he says. “Still, I was isolated from my own roots, my own environment, and when that happens, one recreates one’s own environment.”

Since then, he has recreated that environment all over the world. Today Das has dance schools in Kolkata, Mumbai, San Francisco, Boston and Toronto. He performed at Lincoln Center in New York in 1988 and has been featured in documentaries on PBS and the BBC. He also offers classes to the children of sex workers in Mumbai’s Red Light district and gives workshops at the Blind Opera of Kolkata.

His intention is to honor the instructions of his guru: “To live and to dance as though the [dancers’ ankle] bells, the students, the audience and even a stray chair have all become one.”

In India Jazz Suites, add Samuel Smith’s tapping feet to the sound of those bells. And, Das says, just as when particles collide, “what the audience will be witnessing is energy.”

This appeared in the Miami Herald, 4/16/13

The MDC Live Arts series closes its 2012-13 season with the Brooklyn-based bassist and Argentinean bandleader Pablo Aslan and his quintet performing Piazzolla in Brooklyn this Saturday, April 20, at The Colony Theatre. Aslan’s work from his 2011 recording and follow-up to his Latin Grammy and Grammy-nominated Tango Grill, continues a tradition in fusion of jazz and tango first explored by Astor Piazzolla, tango composer and bandonéon virtuoso, the father of nuevo tango in the 1950s.

After World War II both jazz and tango moved out of the dance halls and ballrooms and into the popular clubs and concert halls, both becoming music to listen to with a much more diminished role for dancing. What saxophonist Charlie Parker and the other early beboppers were doing for jazz, Argentinean Piazzolla was doing for tango.

Piazzolla, while living in New York, was looking for commercial success in the United States, which led to his jazz/tango work Take Me Dancing, recorded in 1959. His nuevo tango introduced sax and electric guitar to tango, mixed electric and acoustic instruments, and fused harmonic and melodic structures.

Miami Herald, JazzTimes and Artburst contributor and critic Fernando González wrote in his 2013 Grammy-nominated liner notes for Piazzolla in Brooklyn that “the Piazzolla of Take Me Dancing was a musician desperately juggling artistic ambitions and subsistence needs. He was back in New York City, where he had spent most of his childhood, but now with a wife and two kids, and looking for a fresh new start for a sputtering career.

“The pearl of this work was supposed to be Take Me Dancing, a recording of both originals and jazz standards interpreted by his Jazz Tango Quintet, comprising electric guitar, vibes, piano, and bass, plus small percussion.”

The recording was anything but a commercial success, and as González recalls, even Piazzolla remarked how dreadful it was. However, his ideas about jazz-tango served to inspire Aslan to reevaluate the work and give it an open-minded listen. A master himself in the fusion of the languages of jazz and tango for the last 20 years, Aslan revisited Piazzolla’s pieces with the sensibility of jazz.

In his interview with González, Aslan says of Take Me Dancing that “the themes and the ideas were very strong and original, but some of them just went by too fast. I felt there were many places where the music could be opened up and developed further. That was the Eureka moment, when I realized that the material in this record had a potential that just needed to be unleashed.” González further says that the arrangements by Piazzolla for nine of those original 1959 pieces became the “road map” for Aslan’s Piazzolla in Brooklyn. Besides having the earlier work as a guide, one important element that Aslan had that Piazzolla didn’t was “an ensemble of musically bilingual players as knowledgeable and comfortable with the vocabulary, syntax, and rhythms of tango as they are with jazz.”

Piazzolla in Brooklyn should not be confused for a tribute album or a remake. Instead it is the culmination of an ongoing conversation between jazz and tango, over 50 years in the making.

As part of MDC Live Arts’ commitment to create meaningful educational experiences, two classes will be offered for MDC students, geared towards providing a musical and historical framework to this fusion of jazz and tango. In the first class, González leads a multimedia, curated listening session that will explore the music of Piazzolla within the history and evolution of tango. The second class is a live music clinic led by Aslan for NWSA music students that traces the innovations and techniques that popularized tango and jazz in the Americas. Both events offer students a unique opportunity to draw connections across cultures, nations, generations, and genres.

MDC Live presents Pablo Aslan Quintet on Sat., April 20 at 8:00 p.m., the Colony Theatre, 1040 Lincoln Rd.,, Miami Beach. Tickets are $25 for general public and $10 for MDC students; 305 237-3010; www.mdclivearts.org.

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

Hailed as the “greatest tap dancer who ever lived,” Savion Glover will bring more than thrilling footwork to the Arsht Center this Saturday. His latest project “SoLe Sanctuary” is a “meditation” on the dance form that he says is his life — and an homage to the late dance greats, who paved the way.

Performing with him is Miami’s own Marshall Davis Jr., a long-time collaborator and like Glover, an accomplished torchbearer of the hoofing tradition.

“SoLe Sanctuary’ rekindles the legacies of Gregory Hines, Steve Condos and Sammy Davis Jr., among other tap icons who left an indelible mark on the dance world and American society at various eras. The touring show is intimate and features a candlelit stage and a white-clothed human prop who meditates on stage for the duration of Glover and Davis’ rhythmic sequences. As critics have said, the stage is literally an altar for the late legends.

“People will enjoy themselves,” says 39-year-old Glover. For Davis, coming back to where he got his start makes the show even more heartfelt. “I’m really looking forward to it. When I left, the Adrienne Arsht Center didn’t exist,” says the 35-year-old, who resides in New York.

Both Glover and Davis rose to stardom as child prodigies. Glover, with his signature dreaded hair and joyful animation, was credited for reinventing tap dance with his hard-hitting style and improvisational choreography, a groundbreaking fusion of jazz, hip-hop, be-bop, and world music patterns and rhythms. The two-time Tony Award winner has enjoyed an illustrious career on Broadway, television and motion pictures, including starring roles with his trainer and mentors Gregory Hines and Sammy Davis, Jr.

Similarly Davis, trained by the late Condos, performed in the award-winning “Bring in ‘da Noise, Bring in ‘da Funk” on Broadway (the show that gave Glover a Tony Award) and Disney’s Oscar-winning motion picture “Happy Feet,” which was choreographed by Glover.

Before heading to Miami, Glover spoke to Artburst about what he and Davis hope to convey through ‘SoLe Sanctuary.’

AB: Could you explain the concept of “SoLe Sanctuary.”
Glover: The concept is basically an opportunity for myself and Marshall to pay homage to the men and women who came before us and some of the greatest contributors, the greatest expressionists and greatest dancers we’ve had. All of my productions are dedicated to them, but this is the first one that speaks to that point and that the audience can hear better.

It’s mostly improvisation and an evening of meditation. It’s like that person is meditating to the sound of the dance and thinking about and praying for the women and men that the production is about. If I wasn’t dancing, that’s what I would be doing. It’s like subconsciously, I am that person.

How has it felt to have worked personally with such dance greats who have passed on.? Do you feel a renewed drive to carry the torch?

It’s motivating. It’s everything. It gives me more of a sense of purpose. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think of them. They are my life. They are my teachers, my fathers, my friends.

Tap dance is seemingly less prevalent than other performance art. Do you feel that it’s a challenge to keep it relevant?

I’ve been hearing this my entire 32-year journey, but to us it’s alive. Tap is as popular as the individual chooses it to be. Since there has been air and gravity, there has been tap dance.

Besides touring for “SoLe Sanctuary,” are there any upcoming productions, movies or collaborations that you are working on?

I’m not working on any movies or anything. I am continuing to work at my craft. As far as collaborations, all of the people who I’ve wanted to collaborate with have already passed on, like Michael Jackson, John Coltrane and Miles Davis. Maybe I would do a collaboration with Sade or Anita Baker. But I’m pretty cool and grateful that I’ve been able to collaborate with the ones who I have collaborated with.

You emerged as hip hop music hit its stride and many associated you with that generation. But given your work with the likes of Hines and Sammy Davis, you were also perceived as the bridge between the old and new. Do you see yourself in that role and do you make an intentional effort to connect with younger generations?

I am doing what I set out to do. I’m not gearing my work to any generation. Every generation has their own following. It’s obvious that people of my generation will be aware of me. Tap dance is loved by all. But I do not wish to associate what I do with hip hop. Now, because I grew up listening to that music at a point in my career it was very aggressive, but I’ve moved far passed that. My dance is universal.

Showtime for “SoLe Sanctuary” is 8:00 p.m., April 6, at the Knight Concert Hall at the Arsht Center for Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami. Tickets cost $50 to $125. For more information, visit www.knightfoundation.org or call 305-949-6722.