On a proscenium stage, dance beckons with a wide focus on a bustling panorama. But up close and personal, artists in motion—through breath and pulse, working muscles and joints, even flashing thoughts registered on faces and sinew—share intimacies as if in a private domain. It’s into that privileged space—and the process of creation and interpretation—that Dimensions Dance Theatre of Miami (DDTM) has been taking audiences with its Salon Series since 2017.
This year’s promising edition, at the Dennis C. Moss Cultural Arts Center’s cozy Lab Theater, is on Friday, March 14, Saturday, March 15 through Sunday, March 16.
“This format builds a stronger connection between our dancers, our choreographers, and our audiences, exposing them to new pieces before the official premiere,” says Jennifer Kronenberg, who along with Carlos Guerra is co-artistic director of DDTM. “Introducing works in progress really gives people a behind-the-scenes peek into what we do on a daily basis. Supporters never fail to let us know how blown away they are by this.”
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With the present show, where the artistic directors serve as moderators, Kronenberg and Guerra further fulfill their foundational goal — to support work by women choreographers. Adding family value to the endeavor, three among the four creators on the bill are company insiders. DDTM dancer Selah Jane Oliver and frequent guest artist Melissa Verdecia (previously with New York’s Ballet Hispánico) represent the home front—respectively with “Valley of Shadows” and “Hasta Que La Muerte Nos Separe (Vignettes on Love)”—as Miami natives and New World School of the Arts graduates. Emily Bromberg, a former principal soloist at Miami City Ballet and a steady anchor performing with Dimensions for more than two seasons, will contribute her second work for the troupe. “Found But Not Lost” is attuned to her psychology background and familial interactions in addressing elder-memory loss and preservation.
“The point of this experience isn’t to put competitive pressure on these choreographers. We just want them to have a space to create freely and temporarily step into a leadership role. And that’s not always easy—choreographing for your peers,” says Kronenberg.
Here Dimensions also reaches across North America to include a choreographer who lays evidence before our eyes for the thriving future of dance. In recent seasons, the South Florida company turned to Quebec native Helen Simoneau, a Salon Series participant, to enhance their repertoire with gripping, in-synch-with-our-times choreography. And the upcoming program again looks up to Canada by featuring Alysa Pires.
A native of the traditional W̱SÁNEĆ territory in British Columbia, Pires received her college education in Toronto and her works have been produced by several companies in her country, including the National Ballet of Canada. In 2023, New York City Ballet commissioned her “Standard Deviation,” making her the first Canadian woman to create a work for NYCB.
It was just before she served as choreographic associate at National Ballet of Canada from 2019 to 2022 that Pires developed, over two years through the company’s Choreographic Workshop, her career-threshold creation. “In Between” premiered in 2018 and will debut in the United States as part of this DDTM season.
“In the salon programs, we are really choosing the choreographers and not the pieces per se,” says Kronenberg. “We want to provide a creative platform and exposure to those artists, some being locals who stand to benefit from the workshopping opportunity. In the case of Alysa, who’s an established choreographer, we seize the opportunity to introduce our audiences to a fantastically inspiring artist and human, letting her share a bit about her work before the public sees it on the Moss main stage in July.”
With a reminder of dance’s ephemeral nature, Pires says, “It’s a privilege to bring a work back to life. Each one I make is a sort of time capsule. My memories live inside the movement. Remounting a work is like getting into a time machine. And ‘In Between’ is special because it marked a huge turning point for me. My first rehearsal was just two weeks after my wedding. Revisiting this dance returns me to that feeling of great hope and excitement.”
It’s not rare for choreographers to alter a work with each of its incarnations, and Pires says, “Though I didn’t make any major edits this time, I always tweak and tinker, often to better suit the cast of dancers. The beauty of staging a work on a new group is seeing how the same steps can be interpreted differently by artists who breathe new life into them. It’s like hearing a great cover of a song you love.”
At its origin “In Between” immersed a small group of dancers in a physical exploration. “It was my first time working with pointe shoes,” says Pires.
But that crossing of borders between the contemporary and the classical meant more than just technical fluidity for Pires. The work arises from a spirit that is longingly split between regions—a very recognizable situation for many South Floridians.
“Even when I’m making something purely abstract in the studio,” says Pires, “I can’t help being who I am in everyday life, and that comes into the work. I grew up on Vancouver Island but have lived in Toronto for nearly two decades. Calling both places home, I am equally comfortable in each, but while I am in one place I always feel homesick for the other. “In Between” is full of images of water and waves, the ebb and flow of the tide like the constant push and pull between two places.”
The piece has an original score by Pires’s husband, Adam Sakiyama, whose own Vancouver Island upbringing lets him identify with her geographical impressions. He’s manifested these through violin, piccolo, glockenspiel, and rumbling percussion suggestive of rolling surf, lighting strikes, and thunder. A calm sea awaits in a piano solo.
“Adam and I have a unique way of working together,” says Pires. “Often, I’ll create movement with no music or with a temp track, and he scores the videos of our rehearsals like a film. He’ll sometimes send short ideas for sections that I can use while creating in the studio. But the full score isn’t written until after I’ve made most of the movement. The back and forth is logistically challenging. Yet we’ve found this conversational collaboration is best for us.”
The possible vistas “In Between” evokes can attract any viewer, contends Pires. “Contemporary ballet has a reputation for being less accessible than narrative, but I think abstract work can actually be more so.”
Eager to hear what viewers think, the choreographer anticipates they’ll connect to the dance through its musicality, athleticism, and changing structures—and, yes, even through relationships among the dancers so as to imagine a storyline.
“It’s like you’re choosing your own adventure,” says Pires.
If You Go
What: Dimensions Dance Theatre of Miami “Salon Series”
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, March 14 and 15; 3:30 p.m. Sunday, March 16
Where: The Dennis C. Moss Cultural Arts Center, 10950 SW 211 St., Miami
Cost: $40
Information: 786-573-5300 or www.mosscenter.org
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