Although Ballet Florida is now long-gone, the world of South Florida dance is seeing other big changes, most notably the arrival at Miami City Ballet of a new director following the sidelining and then departure of the company’s founder, Edward Villella.
But there are small, scrappy companies hereabouts making their marks in the dance world, and the major area venues are bringing a good variety of different shows from traditional ballets to edgy modern productions.
Here are some of the dance shows on the area’s card for this season:
Miami City Ballet: Lourdes Lopez grew up in Miami as the daughter of Cubans fleeing the Castro dictatorship and took up dance on doctor’s orders to strengthen her legs. It worked like a charm, and she was in the company of the New York City Ballet at age 16, where she danced for 24 years and worked with the beloved Mr. B – George Balanchine, one of the dance world’s greatest figures. (She will be the guest of a special Jan. 14 career retrospective program hosted by dancer-photographer Steve Caras at the Kravis Center.)
Lopez, who has been running New York-based Morphoses, is taking over from company founder Edward Villella, who left the troupe earlier this year. This season’s performances, set for the Arsht, Broward and Kravis centers, include another world premiere by the young British phenomenon Liam Scarlett, whose Viscera won audience and critical plaudits. His new ballet goes to the same musical source: the piano concertos of the American composer Lowell Liebermann, this time his Piano Concerto No. 2.
Also premiering this season will be a new ballet by the Russian choreographer Alexei Ratmansky, former director of the Bolshoi Ballet. His Symphonic Dances is set to the work of that name by Sergei Rachmaninov.
Lopez has said she will be trying to expand MCB’s reach outside its home base and its repertory core, the ballets of Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. It should be a most exciting time for dance fans as this fine company makes another leap to the next level.
The first program (Oct. 19-21, Arsht; Oct. 26-28, Broward; Nov. 30-Dec. 2, Kravis) features a throwback ballet in Les Patineurs, a work by Sir Frederick Ashton set to the music of Giacomo Meyerbeer. Also on the bill is Piazzolla Caldera, by Paul Taylor (Piazzolla), and Balanchine’s Apollo, set to a beautiful, classic score by Stravinsky.
Scarlett’s ballet, currently untitled debuts during Program II (Jan. 11-13, Arsht; Jan. 18-20, Broward; Jan. 25-27, Kravis), on a program with two Balanchine ballets: Divertimento No. 15, set to Mozart, and Duo Concertant, with music by Stravinsky. Also included is the pas de deux from Ludwig Minkus’s Don Quixote, with choreography adapted from that of Marius Petipa.
Ratmansky’s Symphonic Dances premieres in Program III (Feb. 22-2, Kravis; March 1-3, Broward; March 8-10, Arsht), which also contains three Balanchine ballets: The Steadfast Tin Soldier (Bizet), Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux (Tchaikovsky), and La Valse (Ravel).
The fourth and final program (April 5-7, Kravis; April 26-28, Broward; May 3-5, Arsht) has two large works on the program, Jerome Robbins’ Dances at a Gathering, with music by Chopin, and Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, with music by Richard Rodgers and choreography by Balanchine.
The company also will stage its annual holiday presentation of The Nutcracker, with the now-famous Balanchine choreography and the indelible Tchaikovsky score that is as much a part of the American Christmas season as tinsel and trees (Dec. 14-16, Broward; Dec. 20-24, Arsht; no Kravis performances). For ticket information, contact the venues or the company at 305-929-7010 (toll-free at 877-929-7010) or visit www.miamicityballet.org.
Duncan Theatre: The Palm Beach State College venue has a Friday night dance series (with repeat Saturday performances) that has featured such stalwarts as Pilobolus and the Paul Taylor Dance Company.
The season opens with Momix, Moses Pendleton’s illusionist-influenced company, in their latest work, Botanica, for which Pendleton has gone all out in multimedia projections. The score, described as “everything from birdsong to Vivaldi,” features props and costumes by Michael Curry. (Jan. 25-26)
There’s more to hula dancing than the cliché would let us believe, and Halau Hula Ka No’eau, founded by Michael Pili Pang in 1986, has spread the word of the dance form’s history and elegance with North American trips since 1994. The Feb. 8 and 9 shows promise to evoke not just the pre-American Hawaiian monarchy in the late 19th century, but also ancient and contemporary hula styles.
Tina Ramirez’s New York-based Ballet Hispanico has been around since 1970, and has a new artistic director, Eduardo Vilario, at the helm to back the company’s mission of exploring the dances of the Latin diaspora. Earlier this year the company – which appears Feb. 22 and 23 at the Duncan – brought an all-Cuban program to suburban Washington’s Wolf Trap concert venue.
The Duncan season closes March 22 and 23 with a visit from Parsons Dance, returning to the Duncan for the first time since 1995. Founded by David Parsons in 1987 and based in New York, Parsons Dance features a 10-member company engaged in Parsons’ mission to bring new audiences to contemporary dance through “American works of extraordinary artistry that are both engaging and uplifting.”
Tickets for three of the shows are $37; the Momix show is priced at $45. Call 561-868-3309 or visit www.duncantheatre.org.
Kravis Center: There’s always a Nutcracker at the Kravis, even without Ballet Florida, and this year the Moscow Classical Ballet brings the Tchaikovsky favorite to the area just before Christmas (Dec. 13-15).
The week before that, the first of three dance shows at the center’s Rinker Playhouse will feature Rennie Harris’ Puremovement, a hip-hop dance company organized by one of the senior figures in the world of rap dance culture (Dec. 6-8). From Britain comes Motionhouse, a company founded by Kevin Finnan and Louise Richards in 1988, a troupe that loves to use film and graphics in its highly athletic productions. Motionhouse’s touring company will bring Scattered, a collaboration with Logela Multimedia of Spain that explores the beauty of water (Jan. 22-23). The Italian troupe Spellbound Dance Company, founded by Mauro Astolfi in 1994, is considered that country’s leading contemporary dance organization; it comes to the Rinker for four shows from April 11-13.
In addition to Moscow Classical Ballet, Dreyfoos mainstage will feature one of the country’s most important companies, the American Ballet Theatre. Founded in 1940, ABT was part of the great artistic ferment of the United States at mid-century, and has a remarkable legacy of commissioning stellar work and training thousands of first-class dancers. ABT performs a mixed repertory show when it makes a tour stop at the Kravis on March 23.
After a touring hiatus of nearly a decade, the Dance Theatre of Harlem arrives April 19 for a show that promises to mix classics of its repertoire with new works. This year, the company is dancing new pieces by Helen Pickett, Robert Garland, John Alleyne and Donald Byrd, among others, and is touring Greece, Turkey and Israel as well as auditoriums all over the country.
Arts Ballet Theatre of Florida: Vladimir Issaev’s company presents three shows at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, beginning with a contemporary show (Oct. 13-14) featuring Issaev’s own Four Seasons, set to the music of Verdi. On March 9, the company present’s Chipollino, a whimsical-but-deep story about a rogue green onion, with music by Karen Khatchaturian. It closes with a spring gala May 11 that includes well-known excerpts from standard ballets.
Also: The Arsht center in Miami presents the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, one of the finest companies in the country, now led by Robert Battle, a native of Miami (Feb. 21-24). The traditional dances of Spain return March 14-17 with Flamenco Festival Miami 2013, and on April 6, the reigning king of tap, Savion Glover, presents his new show, SoLe Sanctuary.
At the Lyric Theatre in Stuart, the Florida Arts and Dance Company presents The Nutcracker in several performances Dec. 6 and Dec. 8. And on Feb. 20, Eduardo Vilario’s Ballet Hispanico comes to the theater on the first of its area visits.
Florida Classical Ballet Theatre: Colleen Smith’s Palm Beach Gardens company features well-designed, entertaining dances enacted by a carefully drilled company headed by featured dancers Lily Ojea and Rogelio Corrales. Earlier this year, it went out on tour of school and church venues in Cuba, with what all reports say were excellent results.
The company begins its season Oct. 6 with two performances the Prokofiev Cinderella at the troupe’s theatrical home at the Eissey Campus Theatre on the campus of Palm Beach State College in Palm Beach Gardens. Its always popular version of The Nutcracker will be seen five times just before Thanksgiving, from Nov. 23-25.
Two other ballets fill out the season, beginning with Wonderland on March 16 and ending May 17 with Short Stories. Tickets are $15; call 561-207-5900 or visit fcbt.org.
Boca Ballet Theatre: Dan Guin and Jane Tyree’s 21-year-old company is a large school of about 500 dance students, many of whom have gone on to professional dance careers. Its version of The Nutcracker is set for Nov. 23-25.
It also has scheduled Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet (March 22-25) and a program Aug. 3 and 4 called Return to Russe, a repertory dance show evoking Diaghilev’s legendary company. Performances in the past have been at Olympic Heights High School and Florida Atlantic University. Tickets are $35; call 561-995-0709 for more information.
Reach Dance/O Dance Company: These independent troupes, founded by Maria Konrad (Reach) and Jerry Opdenaker (O Dance) have found supportive synergy in collaboration, having done a show called Some Like It Hot in August. In the works are RnJ, a retelling of the classic Romeo and Juliet story, and The Office (Jan. 12, 13 and 15, Eissey Campus Theatre). Visit odance.org or reachdancecompany.com for more details as they become available.