There’s a fierce tiger on the loose. Right here in Miami. At the Botanical Gardens on the Beach. The tiger is hungry and has a glint in his eye as he watches a very kind man who is terribly old and can’t run fast. Will tragedy be averted?

The Momentum Dance Company has the answer. And on Sunday, May 13, it will share the whole story, one based on an ancient Indian fable entitled the “Tiger and the Brahmin.” The Mother’s Day performance will begin at 4:00 p.m. and is open to the public free of charge.

In the 30 years since Momentum and its director and choreographer Delma Iles have been working in South Florida, the company has garnered a significant reputation for its innovative modern dance concerts. Iles is proud of this work, but she is equally proud of Momentum’s outreach educational efforts. About half the company’s time and resources is spent working with kids — elementary level all the way to senior high — through various artist-in-residencies in local schools and performances in local libraries and community centers.  “Nobody can love what they don’t have access to,” says Iles.

“We are committed to introducing as many of the young as we can to our art form. We are committed to building future audiences for dance.” Then with a grin Iles adds, “This means reaching out to boys as well as girls. We generally avoid any and all frou-frou and la di da in our performances.” The “Tiger and the Brahim” is the most recent illustration of Momentum’s good efforts.

The Indian fable, thousands of years older than our Aesop’s fables, will be told by Momentum’s eight member company through both pantomime and modern dance.

All the animals and trees that the kind man turns to for guidance, all the folks he meets along the way, indeed, the kind man himself will be wearing masks created by Marilyn Stow, artistic director of FIU’s Theater Department. At a recent preview, a child was heard to say, “Man, that tiger was really scary.”

But Momentum has taken its masked pantomime and modern dance and added something more. At the beginning and the end of the performance, the audience will be able to glimpse a few minutes of Indian classical dance, a tradition that Momentum director Delma Iles describes as “perhaps the richest in the world.” Thanks to Geeta Dias, a local instructor of Indian dance, members of the dance company have mastered more than a few of the “mudras,” the extensive language of hand gestures that is so intimately tied to Indian dance tradition.

How did all this interest in things Indian come about? Thanks to a Miami Dade cultural grant, Momentum director Iles was able to study Indian dance for a time in Mumbai. Back in Miami, she decided to show a film featuring some of that classic dance, albeit with a Bollywood twist, as part of the South Florida Dance Festival. “People in our area seemed to be fascinated. So many folks came that night that the Cinematique couldn’t hold them all.”

Good thing there is ample room on the beach for Sunday’s high drama.

“The Tiger and the Brahmin” at the Miami Beach Botanical Garden, 2000 Convention Center Dr., Miami Beach at 4:00 p.m. For Information and Reservations call: 305-673-7256 or 305-858-7002. Admission is free; www.momentumdance.com.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Miami City Ballet will perform George Balanchine’s “Square Dance” as part of its upcoming Program I, kicking off the 2011-2012 season. It’s a beautifully symmetric choice: Edward Villella, the founder and director of MCB, was a star protégée of Balanchine. The MCB first performed this quintessentially American dance in 1987, and when they later danced it to great reviews in New York City and most recently in Paris this summer, it has become a signature piece. And now, just last month, Villella announced his retirement. What better performance to take us out of his era.

Principal ballerina Jeanette Delgado, who will be square dancing to the score partially from Antonio Vivaldi when MCB takes the stage at the Arsht Center this weekend, recalls what it was like to debut in France this past summer, with this same dance.

“It was nerve wracking at first,” she says during a break from practice. “There, in the home really of ballet, where the audience knows what it is seeing, we were nervous.” But the audience loved what they saw. “They actually don’t get a lot of Balanchine, so it was little different for them.” What was different for the Miami dancers was that the Parisian audiences save their applause until the very end — no clapping after each dance, no bravos after a particularly difficult arabesque. “At first we thought, ‘what is going on, there’s no clapping!’ But then we realized that it’s not done that way there — and when they saved their applause, it was tremendous.”

Back in Miami, Delgado says that one of the joys of “Square Dance” is that it is a “complete ballet — there’s an opening, a pas de deux, an entire journey.” However, it doesn’t have a narrative or storyline. It’s all about dance and the music, she explains. “It’s an homage to an American tradition, and we as dancers get pulled along with it. Edward [Villella] has us really feel the music, make us understand what it is trying to say” and almost anticipate the next sound and movement, she says. “We hold each other’s hands, do the dosey-doe. It’s a really physically challenging dance, but in that way, in a communal way, we keep each other going.

“Since there is no ‘story,’ all the senses are part of this dance.”

The rest of Program I includes three other, very diverse works. One is Jerome Robbins’ “Afternoon of a Faun,” to a score from Debussy, based on the choreographer’s observation of a ballet dancer obsessed with himself and his own reflection. “Liturgy,” which also traveled to Paris, is an austere pas de deux set to the music of contemporary classical composer Arvo Pärt. And finishing off the opening is a Twyla Tharp signature work, “In the Upper Room.”

Miami City Ballet’s Program I opened the season at the Ziff Ballet Opera House in the Adrienne Arsht Center, and continues at  the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 S.W. 5th Ave., Ft. Lauderdale; on Oct. 28, 29, and 30; www.miamicityballet.org.

The Miami City Ballet will make its national television debut on PBS on its Great Performances special, which will include Square Dance, airing on WPBT Channel 2, at 9:00 p.m., Oct. 28.

This first appeared in the Miami New Times Cultist.

Mariana Oliveira is a fresh face for the Miami dance community. A native of Brazil, Oliveira founded The Union Project in New York in 2009, and is now trying to make Miami its home.

The Union project made its Miami debut March 26 and 27 at the 6th Street Dance Studio. The intimate two-day performance showcased Oliveira’s vision to unite dance with visual arts and live music to create unique performance experiences with the premiere of two pieces, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and Dancing with Tom.

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon is based on the 1907 Picasso painting. This piece is accompanied by a 13-person orchestra with an original score composed by Michael Hurwitz, music director of The Union Project, composer, and songwriter.

Dancing with Tom is a tribute to the life and music of Antonio Carlos ‘Tom’ Jobim; the city of Rio de Janeiro; and her home country Brazil. Tom Jobim is a pioneer of the Bossa Nova, a music style created in Rio. He wrote and composed many of the Bossa Nova hits including the iconic Girl from Ipanema. Hurwitz arranged and performed the music for the piece.

Oliveira and Hurwitz are maintaining their momentum and are already working on their next piece. Inspired by forro, a popular musical style from Northeast Brazil, Oliveira is looking to add an evening theater piece to her repertoire. It will also include an original score composed by Hurwitz.

Not looking to limit her choreographies, Oliveira enjoys bringing different music and dance styles to her pieces. “I do not like to label myself. I’m a young choreographer that creates movements and ideas that means something to me at a specific moment,” says Oliveira.

Instead of following a specific regimen, Oliveira looks to her major inspirations. The use of improvisation, Brazilian movement and music, humor, and gestures all influence  her work. “I like gestures that are not normally found in dance. I find inspiration from everyday expressions and non-verbal communication that I see walking down the street, in stores and throughout my everyday interactions outside of the dance studio,” explains Oliveira.

Improvisation is also important to her creative process. It’s a forum for new forms of movement and expression to be created, and provides an opportunity for her dancers’ unique styles and individuality to be expressed throughout their pieces creating a collaborative environment.

Albeit fun, directing a new dance company has also had its challenges. “We are optimistic to find a place within the larger dance community and find a home for ourselves,” Oliveira says. Experiencing some of the difficulties of many of her peers in Miami, Oliveira is working to find a permanent home for her company to rehearse and host more intimate performances.

Oliveira is a graduate from the Royal Ballet School of London, and has been an apprentice dancer at Diversions Modern Dance Company of Wales, New York Theater Ballet and also Ajkun Ballet (NYC). Locally, she has performed with the Cuban Classical Ballet of Miami and Karen Peterson & Dancers. Here’s hoping she finds a good home here in our Miami hood.

Performer, dancer, and choreographer Emmanuel Abiodun Aderele of Nigeria is a visiting artist at Osun’s Village & African Caribbean Cultural Arts Corridor in Liberty City. He was interviewed about his experience here in the Nigerian Tribune. The interview by Wale Olapade is reprinted below.

How long have you been an artist?
My homage goes to my great ancestors that made this dream come through for me. I have been an artist right from when I was a little boy. When I was a child, I love drawing on my books; I enjoyed drum and dance. During this time, I attended spiritual ceremonies with my parents. Since then, I have learned the act of creativity in my own little world as a renowned performing artist, choreographer and a sacred visual artist. This is my 22 years of being an artist doing what the Orisa has sent me to do, in this beautiful world.

For me being an artist, I was inspired by my mother and my late sister, Mrs. Adekemi Lilian Jacobs (nee Aderele). Both of them have always been supportive ofmy life.  They would say to me,” Prince, believe in yourself and follow your dreams. With this advice, I have believed in myself and followed my dreams. America, here I am, “Dreams do come true, ase.”

How were you introduced to the Osun’s Village and African Caribbean Cultural Arts Corridor in Miami, Florida?
Long story, as the Yoruba proverb says, Iwa rere leso omo eniyan; meaning good character is the life of a good person. I was introduced to the Osun’s Village and African Caribbean Cultural Arts Corridor through my godfather and the Executive Director of the art corridor, Chief Nathaniel B. Styles Olosun. This was in 1997 when Chief Styles visited Nigeria and came to the Museum Centre in Lagos where I was performing with my dance troupe (Edun Dance Company). Subsequently, we lost contact and in 2007, Chief Styles came back to Nigeria to introduce the project to the Ataoja of Osogbo, late Oba Iyiola Oyewale Matanmi II, in Osun State and we met again. That day marked another reunion with Chief Styles and I was introduced to the project and since then, my involvement and travel to the USA, as an international visiting artist, has been great experience.

How long have you been in the US?
I have been in the USA for a year as an official international visiting artist at the Osun’s Village and African Caribbean Cultural Arts Corridor.

What have been your experiences there?
I have experienced a great deal in the United States. I am at present in the United States as an International Visiting Artist and Choreographer at the Osun’s Village, Miami, Florida, a project of Community Builders Holistic Development Corporation, whose mission is to establish international artist and community exchange programmes that facilitate international trade and global understanding and reinforce the significance of ancient traditional cultures. My artwork illustrates sacred historical events, stories and folktales. The inspiration for my work stems from my culture, which is rich with stories about the good and not so the good, kindness and selfishness, fate and determination, timeliness and tardiness, and many other lessons of life.

I strive to connect those educational and universal lessons to daily life. I have dedicated my artwork to promoting messages that revive and uplift communities. Global burdens boldly address social justice. I have gained a lot with my recent stay in the United States! I have met numerous artists expressing their creativity through different mediums. The interaction with other artists during performances, exhibitions and solo shows has had a tremendous influence on works created during my stay in the United States.

Artist Setups, organised by the South Florida Artists Association, where various artists come together and share their experiences, have also proven to be very rewarding for me because I was the youngest among all of the artists and the only African. Thanks to the great ancestors, I was warmly received. I have been pleased to share my talents and experiences with others during my stay in the USA.

I met international performing artists such as Tito Puente Jr., performing with him as a special guest artist at the DOCMIAMI International Film Festival. We shared the stage with the renowned Afro-Cuban musician and actress, Olga Guillot, who passed away two weeks after the event. It was a great pleasure for me to have met and performed with legends such as these. The music Tito played, the songs Olga sang, and the complexion of their skins reinforced the fact that our common West African ancestral heritage has been preserved. This was a very emotional experience for me, which moved the audience to their feet as well.

Many of those in the Diaspora from the Caribbean countries were brought from Africa during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The culture and traditions this predominant population bought with them are still alive and active today.

I recently collaborated with the Afro-Cuban master drummer and drum builder, Ezequiel Luis Torres in Miami. Ezequiel is originally from Havana, Cuba and recently won the 2010 National Heritage Fellowship Award, which was organised by the National Endowment for the Arts.
When I met Ezequiel, it was like meeting a lost brother. For me, it was a great joy to share my talent with my fellow brothers who have strived to preserve their West African culture, customs and traditions. Recently, I received a Life Time Achievement Award from the Miami Dade County Celebrating: Community builders, HDC Fork Heritage and Cultural Day, a proclamation and the key to Miami Dade County. All thanks to Chief Styles Olosun for making this journey possible for me and our ancestors reconnecting.
What would you like to share Nigerians?
Once again, this journey has been a great experience for me.  What I would like to say to my fellow artists is, be true to yourself; believe in your dreams and work towards them. What I found out was that most of the artists are looking forward to come to the United States and run away. At the end of the day, they all end up working in areas that have nothing to do with their traditional arts and the talents, hence the gifts are gone and forgotten. Don’t think of running away when you get to the US, because if you do, you block the chances for others to come and everything is totally blocked in the future.

Projects such as the Osun’s Village and African-Caribbean Cultural Arts Corridor help to demonstrate the value of our culture and how it is appreciated internationally. Yes, culture is business. As the Yoruba proverb says, “Ibi ti ori bama gbe ni de, ki ese wa ma sina ibe, ase.”

How do you think the government could improve on promotion of cultural tourism?
What I would like to tell the government is, “Osun’s Village and African Caribbean Cultural Art Corridor Miami Florida are great projects to invest in. The mission is to establish international artist and community exchange programmes that will facilitate international trade and global understanding and to reinforce the significance of ancient traditional cultures throughout the world. I must tell you, my promotion of cultural tourism in Nigeria, shot me into limelight, internationally.

It is also important that our leaders should stop mismanaging and looting of public funds and invest in infrastructural and capacity development so that the future generation would have something to talk about. They should invest in promoting good memories of our traditions to be passed onto future generations also empower the youth so that they would be proud to say; we are Nigerians.

It’s time for choreographers to take a break from the studio and make sure they put in submissions for this unique program sponsored by Miami-Dade County’s Department of Cultural Affairs. With non-matching cash awards of $10,000, it’s meant to nurture the artistic development of Miami-Dade-based professional choreographers for the creation of new work in all dance forms.

A mandatory pre-grant consultation has a deadline of no later than April 19, 2011, with submission deadline of April 27.

The program year will run from Oct. 1 2011 through Sept. 30, 2012.

Call for a pre-submission consultation: 305-375-5019; and go to miamidadearts.culturegrants.org/navigation/links/page/dance-miami-choreographers-program.

Program Guidelines: DMC_Guidelines_FY11.12.pdf.

Grants That Keep Both Choreographers and the Dance Community Afloat

Step by step, Miami is getting the message out: There is dance in this town.

As a dance community, Miami is best known outside of its borders for the Miami City Ballet. But there is a program working to change that, the Dance Miami Choreographers Fellowship Program, or DMF, sponsored by Miami-Dade’s Department of Cultural Affairs, whose purpose is to provide grants on a competitive basis to local professional choreographers.

A panel of renowned experts in the field from across the country gathered here last fall and studied the video submissions of the candidates, choosing three participants that exemplified the diversity and talent this city has to offer: Augusto Soledade, founder, resident choreographer, and artistic director of the Brazz Dance Theater company, which blends Afro-Brazilian and contemporary dance; Cuba-born choreographer and artistic director of the ERE.Bistoury company Alexey Taran; and independent choreographer and Miami native Letty Bassart.

The fellowship, literally, can mean the difference between jumping for joy, or dragging one’s meant-to-be-dancing feet. Just ask Soledade.

“It is an absolutely essential program in this county, and my understanding is that there are not too many of this kind throughout the country,” says this three-time winner of the DMF grant, who originally established his company in Massachusetts in 1998, and moved it to South Florida in 2004 when he got hired by Florida International University as an assistant dance professor. Now, as FIU has scrapped its dance department, Soledade will no longer have a job there after this year, thus the fellowship has become even more indispensable to help him keep the company going.

“Initially, the Dance Miami Choreographers Fellowship was a $5,000 award, but that specific year of my award, 2005, it started to be a $10,000 award,” remembers the Bahia native, who’s in his mid-40s. “So I was one of the first choreographers to benefit from this. And it was incredible, because dance as a discipline really survives on the generosity of supporters and grant programs.”

There’s a specific reason for that, Soledade believes: “Our artistic product is not, usually, as commercial as a lot of other artistic products. So the help from the fellowship, for me, really reflects an excellent understanding of the kinds of costs that choreographers face in order to be able to produce any kind of dancing.”

Which is precisely why the program exists, says its director, Adriana Pérez, responsible for the selection of the panelists involved in the fellowship-granting process.

“Our mission is to have the artist create new works. We try to foster them, give them the opportunity. We are not going to limit what they can do with those dollars,” explains the Projects Administrator for the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs.

Pérez, on her third season in charge of this program begun in 2000, is gung-ho about dancers in Miami and what the fellowship can accomplish to put the spotlight on them.

“I think outside of Miami, people don’t know much about what companies exist here and what is being created, other than Miami City Ballet,” she says. “The fellowship can allow them to attend dance conferences and meet and network with other dance companies nationwide and be able to start collaborations outside of Miami. International cultural exchanges can be facilitated. And it helps them to just create, create, create.”

The fellowship is only available for residents of Miami-Dade, but applications from other areas have come in, a testament to the recognition the DMF has garnered.

Panelists Point of View

“I was very impressed not only by the quality and the diversity of the artists, but also by the way the panel conducted the process and how it was organized by Miami-Dade. It was notably fair and rigorous,” says New York panelist Gina Gibney, choreographer and artistic director of Gina Gibney Dance, a pioneer in taking dance to communities by working with abused women and children and HIV patients.

“It is very rare for a county, for a government entity, to create fellowships as these. The kind of trust that they put in the artists is unique,” continues Gibney. “I’m not surprised that they get artists from outside the county wanting to be a part of it, because what people really need is financial support, and it doesn’t have to be a lot, but it has to be enough.”

Although the panelists – which also included Aubrey Lynch, choreographer on Broadway and former dancer for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; and Michael Uthoff, artistic and executive director of Dance St. Louis, Missouri – reviewed applicants with many different backgrounds and styles, there are certain elements that they must all share in order to be selected.

“When you look at a performer, is there a commitment to excellence? Is there a commitment to the art form as a whole? And then, within the structure, is what they’re showing of the creative strength that needs to be sponsored?” asks Uthoff, originally from Chile, who is familiar with the local scene thanks to working over the years with the New World School of the Arts and with the Dance Now! Ensemble.

Uthoff adds that no matter how creative or original the dance presented, it must connect with the audience. And in such difficult economic times, that is more essential than ever.

“Is this something that will bring more audiences to the theater, or will it basically make people run away and never come back?” he analyzes.

“Very often, grants are given to individuals who show a great deal of originality, and perhaps in three-years time, they will develop something that works for the theater. But right now, we need to focus on how do we fill those houses. That was the argument that we had.”

Photos: Fellowship award winner Alexey Taran; New York panelist Gina Gibney, director of Gina Gibney Dance

Choreographer Augusto Soledade likes to mix things up. His company, Brazz Dance Theater, is rooted in the movement and rhythms of Soledade’s native Brazil, but he works in elements of funk, African dance, hip-hop, and even tango.

He is currently working with a small group of dancers in the Little Haiti Cultural Center on his new piece, Misura Fina, which premieres March 11.

The piece fully embodies Soledade’s mission to bridge cultures and far-flung influences. The title itself translates from Portuguese to “fine blend.”

Soledade describes the piece as a duet for a dancer and a drummer, combining influences of North American funk and Afro-Brazilian rhythms. It’s an experimental piece that explores the internal and external connections between the dancer and musician in particular, and music and dance in the greater picture.

“The relationship between the two is so strong,” Soledade explains. “To explore it allows me to connect to a universal audience.”

The piece premieres March 11. In the meantime there is a lot of work to be done.

As he leads his dancers in a warm up in a large sun-filled studio in the Little Haiti Cultural Center, he has his dancers roll on the ground and contract their bodies and breathe. Soon they are up and moving gracefully in rhythmic movement that Soledade calls Afro-Fusion.

The style is Soledade’s signature mix of influences from his native Brazil to African and African-American traditions.

“What I do today is a blend of various dance forms,” he says. “It’s a contemporary dance with Afro-Brazilian roots.”

Bringing together various influences is just one part of Soledade’s mission. He also takes on contemporary themes such as deforestation in the Amazon and the effect it has on the Brazil’s native populations.

For his earlier piece Dreaming Amazonia, Soledade traveled in Manaus, in Brazil’s Amazon, to see first-hand how the aboriginal cultures were affected by the destruction.

Growing up in Salvador Bahia in northeastern Brazil, Soledade was surrounded by a vibrant culture that thrived in the historic city center. Street artists who sold their works in open markets and musicians who performed in public squares.

He began painting and drawing at a young age and was drawn to architecture. But soon he discovered dance, the art that would become his medium. Soledade’s first memory of dance is grooving with his aunt, who introduced him to the seminal Brazilian dance form – samba.

“Samba is a form of identity,” he says. “ It’s what makes us Brazilian. It was a form that became so much a part of life.”

Soon Soledade was dancing with companies in Bahia and touring nationwide. He began Brazz Dance Theater in 1998 with collaborator Rachelle Zambito. He’s won several national, state, and local arts grants including a Guggenheim Fellowship in Choreography.

Brazz Dance Theater has been one of the resident companies in the Little Haiti Cultural Center since it opened in 2009.

Creating dance in Little Haiti with all its colorful art and diverse people gives Soledade the feeling of being in his native Bahia.

“I feel totally comfortable and at home here,” Soledad says. “ I don’t feel ‘otherized’ – I’m not the other. I navigate comfortably and I see the people around me as kings and queens.”

Brazz Dance Company’s “Mistura Fina” comes to the Adrienne Arsht Center, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., on March 11 and 12 at 8 p.m.; www.arshtcenter.org; wwwbrazzdance.com.

Justin Perez is trying to change lives. A native of New York, raised in Orlando, Perez is the founder and creative director of Change Through Dance (CTD), a Miami-based, non-profit organization that promotes social change through the power of dance. He’s currently pursuing a B.F.A. in dance at the New World School of the Arts.

We caught up with Perez before the first rehearsal for Flash Mob Downtown, an alternative dance event co-sponsored by CTD and Switchboard Miami, with the aim of creating awareness of crisis counseling and other social services provided by Switchboard.

The Flash Mob event starts at 5:00 p.m. sharp on Thursday, Feb. 17, at  Government Center — just in time for evening rush hour.

Artburst: How important is dance in creating social change? And where does this power come from?

Perez: Dance allows people to fully and freely express themselves. This allows the individual to speak and act with no fear, and to love themselves as well as to express it to others. The essence of dance teaches a dancer how to motivate oneself to move forward. Dance teaches self-discipline, body-awareness, and the ultimate self-discovery. The power comes from within the dancer and the exploration through trial and error.

What is your goal for Flash Mob Downtown?

The goal of the Flash Mob is to bring community awareness to Switchboard Miami, which offers the most comprehensive telephone crisis counseling, suicide prevention information, and referral services available. They also provide individual and family counseling services, and prevention programs for at-risk youth and their families. Since Switchboard Miami and CTD’s visions run parallel, this Flash Mob opportunity will serve to create heightened community awareness and offers a fun way to be a part of this organization.

Without dance, the world would be…?

Without dance society would be deprived of the richness of other cultures and the awareness of social events and human feelings would be suppressed or non-existent. Dance offers people freedom of self-expression. It allows us to keep our traditions alive — from the history of folk dances to the repertory of local dance companies. Without dance the world would not have true freedom nor would we have an appreciation of our cultural differences and our evolution as a community.

What motivates you to do what you do?

I wanted to create a place where artists, students, and underprivileged children can come together to simply create art and express themselves with no judgment — in an atmosphere of acceptance and encouragement. CTD was created to be a safe haven for all artists of all ages and backgrounds within our community. Since I started dancing later in life and was given the opportunity at my college to dance, I want to offer this opportunity to other young people and introduce them to another way of living, and thinking; not only through the mind but also through the body.

Favorite dance?

I enjoy the works of all dance styles, from the strength of Graham to the beautiful lines of ballet. In my choreography, I like to incorporate a little of all styles to offer the dancer a variety of movement and partnering.

What’s your next project?

CTD Contemporary and the Miami-Dade College ICC Program will partner together to bring you “Clean up Downtown.” We start at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, April 23 and end at 1:00 p.m. We will pick up trash, paint, and plant all over Downtown Miami. Volunteers will receive a complementary ticket to the CTD show Re-Cycle — an homage to Earth Day and everything in the production is made of recycled and earth friendly materials.

Flash Mob Downtown, 5:00 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 17. Location: Government Center in downtown Miami. For more information on either of these nonprofit organizations, visit them at changethroughdance.org and switchboardmiami.org; email: info@changethroughdance.org.

Annie Hollingsworth is a visual artist, dancer, choreographer, and writer who says she is a Brooklyn girl at heart — but she belongs to Miami now. According to Hollingsworth, her visual work “traces the fundamental dynamics underneath mundane experience.” She follows a kind of ritualistic process and moves between realities, which must be why Hollingsworth is able to live an anything-but-mundane life in Miami.

After graduating from Brown, Hollingsworth moved to New York City, where she became a student of Haitian folkloric dance, based on ritual movement and storytelling. She continued her studies under Mikerline Pierre, a dancer trained at Haiti’s prestigious Enarts dance school, and performed with Mikerline Dance Troupe for three years. Hollingsworth says that since she’s been in Miami her “dance work is moving towards something that would best be described as performance, or even installation.”

In 2010 Hollingsworth choreographed a piece based on Gede (the spirits of the dead), in which the vodou spirits that embody the powers of death and fertility are celebrated. Hollingsworth loves this tradition so much that she says she’ll “dance in just about any performance in the Afro-Cuban or Afro-Haitian tradition.” It’s a small community, and one in which Hollingsworth has found a second home.

Last year Hollingsworth won the Artlurker Writer’s Prize, which was made possible by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and has since written for Artlurker.com, NO MAD Magazine, and, most recently, Art Papers. She has produced international art exhibitions, large-scale commissions, and exhibition catalogues. Oh, and, Hollingsworth is also the assistant director at the Dorsch Gallery.

1. List five things that inspire you.

- Dancing for the orishas

- Nice beats

- Maya Deren

- Haitian Kreyol

- The possibility of travel

2. What was your last big project?

After winning the Artlurker prize last summer, I was given the challenge of writing eight articles in eight weeks. I got a crash course not only in the Miami art scene but also in processing my experience of other peoples’ work quickly and precisely. Even though I believe, philosophically, that words are a powerful creative force, I had never considered writing as integral to visual art. I had always put words and images in separate categories. It was a surprise to learn that building conversation around visual work is as abstract as making something, and equally powerful in terms of bringing ideas into form.

3. What’s your next big project?

Generally I’m considering the space between dance and visual art, both visually and in writing. I’m also developing ideas for a workshop on Congolese and Yoruban dance and music that would bring guest teachers into Miami and highlight some of the incredible teachers living here.

4. Why do you do what you do?

It’s a simple search for truth and happiness.

5. What’s something you want Miami to know about you? What’s something you don’t want Miami to know about you?

Most people in Miami know me in only one of my roles – a dancer, a writer, the assistant at Dorsch Gallery. I am all of them plus some I haven’t mentioned, and any work I do comes out of that complexity. I have no attachment to what form my creative work takes. My secret? I’ll always be a Brooklyn girl at heart.

First published as a 100 Creatives for Miami New Times

January 12 2011

Maloney’s latest project, Vertical Sprawl, which looks at how humans have faith in a future darkened with the extreme changes in the environment, is a collaboration with composer Juan Carlos Espinosa. Vertical Sprawl mashes together disparate narratives, from the Easter Island Birdman myth to Miami’s real estate boom-and-bust cycle.

“I am a choreographer whose definitive action,” Maloney explains, “is to make work that addresses the unseen parts of our humanity. I use space as a platform for social change.” In Vertical Sprawl, Maloney asks an essential question: What spaces have we abandoned within ourselves when we build skyscrapers as island temples?

Whatever spaces we have abandoned, Maloney has reclaimed some of them with Inkub8. As the artistic director of Inkub8, an alternative whitebox/studio/performance space located in Wynwood, Maloney has created an organization that’s become an epicenter (and incubator) for experimental, multidisciplinary works in Miami. Inkub8 is a manifestation of Maloney’s belief in using space as a platform for social change and artistic expression. And Miami’s performing arts community has landed some fertile farming ground because of it.

An excerpt of Vertical Sprawl will be presented by the Florida Dance Festival as a part of Winterfest, this Friday and Saturday at the Byron Carlyle Theatre (500 71st S., Miami Beach) at 8 p.m., tickets cost $15 general, $10 for students and seniors.

1. List five things that inspire you?

abandoned spaces — prehistoric to modern

wind

being in love

the sound of motion

an empty room

2.What was your last big project?

Aside from Vertical Sprawl, I have just celebrated the one year anniversary of inkub8. Over the course of the year we have launched an open-studio series, a monthly series on the Second Saturday Wynwood artwalk, where over 50 artists have presented works in progress; the Summer Movement Intensive 2010, a week-long performance art/dance lab; weekly dance classes; and a visual art/dance collaboration presented during Art Basel.

3.What is your next big project?

I am working on a new, evening-length performance project to premiere in May. We’re also launching a Community Supported Artcub8 to help support residencies of hybrid contemporary performance artists. On the farm in Virginia where I was raised, the core of our income came from community-supported agriculture. After a recent visit home I thought to myself, “why not try this at Inkub8?” I know that in other cities, artist collectives have used this frame to support the creation of new work — so I figured why not try it in Miami!

4. Why do you do what you do?

I couldn’t imagine doing anything else, and I can’t even begin to textualize how grateful I am for the opportunity to do what I do!

5. What is something you want Miami to know about you?

My role is eclectic — sometimes a director, sometimes a social activist, an  environmentalist, an anthropologist, but I’m always a farmer of dreams.

What is something you don’t want Miami to know about you?

I can be scared of the dark in the city — but never in the forest.

First published in Miami New Times as part of the 100 Creatives series.