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American contemporary dance company based in Miami From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dance NOW! Miami (legally Dance Now! Ensemble, Inc.) is an American contemporary dance company based in Miami, Florida. It was founded in 2000 by Hannah Baumgarten and Diego Salterini, who serve as its co-artistic directors.[1][2] The company performs new choreography by its co-founders alongside revivals of works by historic modern-dance and ballet choreographers, and operates education programs from its home at the Little Haiti Cultural Center in Miami.[1] Miami New Times named Dance NOW! Miami "Best Dance Company" in its 2022 rankings.[3]

NameDance NOW! Miami
Year founded2000
FoundersHannah Baumgarten
Diego Salterini
LocationMiami, Florida, U.S.
Quick facts Dance NOW! Miami, General information ...
Dance NOW! Miami
General information
NameDance NOW! Miami
Year founded2000
FoundersHannah Baumgarten
Diego Salterini
LocationMiami, Florida, U.S.
Principal venueLittle Haiti Cultural Center
Websitedancenowmiami.org
Artistic staff
Artistic directorHannah Baumgarten
Diego Salterini
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History

Founding

Baumgarten and Salterini met at PAN, a South Beach dance and performing-arts center founded by Miami dance figure Ilisa Rosal.[1] Baumgarten, a 1993 B.F.A. graduate of Juilliard School—where she studied under Benjamin Harkarvy, founding artistic director of Nederlands Dans Theater and later director of the Juilliard Dance Division, whom she considers her mentor—had performed with modern-dance and contemporary-ballet troupes before moving to Miami in 1994.[1][4] Salterini, who trained in Rome under Maestro Roberto Salaorni at the Istituto Addestramento Lavoratori dello Spettacolo (I.A.L.S.) and considers Salaorni his mentor, had worked as a lead dancer and assistant choreographer on Italian television and theater productions before relocating to Miami in search of more artistically substantial work.[1][5][6] The two founded Dance NOW! Miami in 2000, initially with two additional dancers, Giorgina Lopez and Colleen Farnum, primarily to present their own choreography.[1]

Little Haiti residency

In 2009 Dance NOW! Miami became one of the resident companies of the Little Haiti Cultural Center in Miami, which houses a theater and two large dance studios.[1] The company initially received free rehearsal, storage, and performance space and later paid a nominal rent; the arrangement gave the company the stability to operate as an institution rather than project by project, and connected it to the center's community and education programs.[1]

Expansion of mission

Over time the company's mission expanded to include restaging historic modern-dance and ballet works, presenting new choreographers, education and community programs, showcases for Miami dance artists, its own performances, international touring, and site-specific works.[1] Miami Herald arts writer Jordan Levin described Dance NOW! Miami as "a pillar of the Miami dance community."[1]

20th anniversary and pandemic pivot

Dance NOW! Miami marked its 20th anniversary in 2020. After the COVID-19 pandemic shut down live performances and cancelled the company's planned collaboration with Italy's Compagnia Opus Ballet, the company moved its 20th anniversary season finale online.[7] The virtual program, Zoom, Zoom, Zoom: A Love Letter To Italy, was recorded remotely by the company's nine dancers, set to Italian pop music from the 1960s and 1970s and edited by Salterini; it streamed on Facebook Live on May 31, 2020.[7][1]

Limón Dance Company collaboration (2022–2023)

In 2022 and 2023, Dance NOW! Miami undertook a multi-city collaboration with New York's Limón Dance Company, marking the Limón company's return to live performance for its 75th anniversary season.[8][9] The centerpiece was The Waldstein Sonata, a work for eight dancers set to Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 21 in C major that José Limón had begun in 1971 at Juilliard but left unfinished at his death in 1972; Daniel Lewis, Limón's protege and later the Limón company's acting artistic director, completed the choreography in 1975 under a commission from Juilliard's Martha Hill and president Peter Mennin.[8][9][10] The Limón company had not previously performed the work.[8]

For Program III of the 2021–22 season, staged jointly by répétiteur Nancy Jordan and Lewis, four Dance NOW! Miami dancers and four Limón dancers performed The Waldstein Sonata in a blended cast, with live piano by New World School of the Arts provost Jeffrey Hodgson.[8][9] The programs also included Limón's La Malinche (1947) performed by Dance NOW! Miami, Limón's Psalm (1967) performed by the Limón company, and Baumgarten and Salterini's Anusim, What is Hidden is Never Lost.[8][9] The two companies performed together at Duncan Theatre in Lake Worth (May 12, 2022), the Broward Center for the Performing Arts' Amaturo Theater in Fort Lauderdale (May 13, 2022), and the Aventura Arts and Cultural Center in Aventura (May 14, 2022).[8][9][11]

In May 2023, Dance NOW! Miami made its New York City debut in the second part of the collaboration, performing The Waldstein Sonata with the Limón Dance Company at City College's Aaron Davis Hall on May 3 and May 6, 2023.[10] At the New York performances, Lewis formally transferred the performance rights for The Waldstein Sonata to the Limón Foundation in a public signing ceremony.[10]

International collaborations

Since 2016, Dance NOW! Miami has developed a series of two-year international exchanges under an umbrella project it calls Bridges NOT Walls/Puentes NO Muros, supported in part by the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs' International Cultural Partnerships grant program.[12][13] The model brings two similarly sized contemporary dance companies together to co-create new work on shared themes, first performing separately and then in a "blended cast" in each partner's home country.[12][13]

Mexico City Ballet / Compañia de Danza Clásica de Quintana Roo (2016–2018)

The first Bridges NOT Walls cycle was a 2016–2018 partnership with Mexico's Mexico City Ballet/Compañia de Danza Clásica de Quintana Roo, developed in response to the 2016 U.S. presidential election and public debate over building a border wall.[12] Dance NOW! Miami first traveled to Mexico to perform with the partner company; the Mexican company subsequently appeared in Miami.[12]

Compagnia Opus Ballet, Florence, Italy (2019–2023)

In 2019, the Bridges NOT Walls project brought Dance NOW! Miami to Italy to work with Florence-based Compagnia Opus Ballet, led by Rosanna Brocanello and Daniel Tinazzi.[12] Framed against the European refugee crisis, the two companies performed a blended-cast version of the work in Florence and gave an encore performance in Rome.[12] A planned March 2020 return visit by Opus Ballet to Miami was cancelled by the COVID-19 pandemic; in place of the live exchange, Dance NOW! Miami presented video of the Italian company during its 2021 season.[7][12] Opus Ballet ultimately made its U.S. debut as guest company for Dance NOW! Miami's seasonal Holiday performance in December 2022.[12] In July 2023, Dance NOW! Miami performed a blended-cast version of Gli Altri/The Others, co-choreographed by Salterini, Baumgarten and Opus Ballet's Emiliano Candiago, at Villa Strozzi's Anfiteatro della Limonaia in Florence as part of the Crossroads Dance Series.[12] The full blended-cast Miami premiere of Gli Altri, on a program that also included fragments of Opus Ballet's The White Room by Adriano Bolognino, took place at the Miami Theater Center in March 2024.[12]

Dança em Diálogos, Cascais, Portugal (2021–2025)

A third cycle paired Dance NOW! Miami with Dança em Diálogos of Cascais, Portugal, a contemporary ballet company founded in 2018 by former Portuguese National Ballet principals Solange Melo and Fernando Duarte.[14][15] The exchange was linked to the Sister Cities partnership between Miami Beach and Cascais and had originally been programmed as a Bridges NOT Walls Portugal residency before being suspended by the pandemic.[15][16] In June 2021, Dance NOW! Miami became the first Florida dance company to travel to Europe since the onset of the pandemic, entering Portugal as designated cultural ambassadors just days before the country reopened its borders to U.S. travelers; the 13-member troupe performed with Dança em Diálogos at Casino Estoril on June 24 and taught contemporary-dance workshops in Lisbon and Alcobaça for students aged 12–20.[15] The visit was witnessed by Cascais mayor Carlos Carreiras, Cascais culture minister Salvato Telles de Menezes, and acting U.S. ambassador Kristin M. Kane.[15]

Dança em Diálogos made its Florida debut on April 2, 2022 at the Miami Theater Center, performing a joint program with Dance NOW! Miami that included a new blended-cast version of Baumgarten and Salterini's Anusim, What is Hidden is Never Lost, which had been developed with Portuguese co-choreographer Fernando Duarte and takes its subject from the 1497 forced conversion of Portugal's Jews.[14][16] The partnership continued with a February 2025 world premiere of Blue Pencil, a Salterini and Baumgarten work developed with Melo about censorship under the Estado Novo regime (1933–1974); the Miami Theater Center premiere on February 28 was followed by a Portuguese debut at Vila das Artes in Cascais on March 12, timed to Portugal's 50th-anniversary observances of the Carnation Revolution.[13]

Repertory and programs

Original works

The co-founders create original works both individually and in collaboration. Recurring works in the repertory include:

  • Chronicles (2005), choreographed by Diego Salterini and inspired by a 2004 visit to Medina, Ohio, described as an interpretation of the American Midwest as a place of calm and tranquility.[17]
  • Random Pattern of Falling Leaves (2011), created jointly by Baumgarten and Salterini as a work about the autumn landscape, changing seasons, and impermanence.[17]
  • Tethered (2023), a Baumgarten world premiere with a score by Davidson Jaconello and Felix Rosch, described as a return to her contemporary-ballet influences.[17]
  • Love-less: Dance of the Last Moho braccatus (2026), a Baumgarten world premiere inspired by the extinct Hawaiian songbird Moho braccatus; Baumgarten first encountered the bird's call during a screening of Sam Green's documentary 32 Sounds at the Pérez Art Museum Miami.[2]
  • Traces (2026), a Salterini world premiere charting "the universal search for love, seen through the eyes of one woman."[2]
  • Deco-de, a Salterini work described as an homage to Art Deco design and architecture.[2]
  • Dorian's Reflection (2021), a Baumgarten and Salterini world premiere with an original score by Davidson Jaconello; the work reimagines Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray in the era of selfies, social media, and dating apps, flipping the story so that Dorian's projected image stays young while the character ages.[18]
  • Court Dance (2011), a Baumgarten work set to excerpts from Peter Gabriel and Japanese percussion group Kodo, performed in white masks and black suits and reviewed by The Dance Enthusiast as "an amazingly disturbing battle."[19]
  • This Moment, Here (2021), a full-length live-streamed premiere developed from company dancers' personal accounts of the COVID-19 pandemic; it later received a first live-audience adaptation during the company's 25th anniversary season.[20]
  • Terra Mia / My Land (2025), a Salterini world premiere that closed the company's 25th anniversary season.[20]

Masterpiece in Motion

Under a recurring program it calls "Masterpiece in Motion," Dance NOW! Miami restages canonical works by 20th-century modern-dance and ballet choreographers.[21] Since 2010, co-artistic directors Baumgarten and Salterini have curated the program, working with authorized répétiteurs to bring rarely performed pieces back to the stage.[21] Documented restagings include:

  • Ritmo Jondo (Deep Rhythm) (1953) by Doris Humphrey, originally created for the José Limón Dance Company and staged for Dance NOW! Miami by Daniel Lewis, founding dean of dance at Miami's New World School of the Arts.[22][1]
  • Additional Humphrey and Limón works staged by Daniel Lewis for the company, including a 2022–23 restaging of Limón's posthumously completed The Waldstein Sonata as part of a two-year collaboration between Dance NOW! Miami and the Limón Dance Company.[1][8][9]
  • Isadora Duncan works staged by Miami dance pioneer Andrea Mantell-Seidel, former artistic director of the Isadora Duncan Dance Ensemble in Miami; documented titles include Varshavianka, Ave Maria, Harp Solo, and Dubinushka.[1][23][24] For a December 2021 program titled Stories for the Holidays, Mantell-Seidel reconstructed and restaged four short Duncan works for the company.[23]
  • José Limón works including La Malinche (1947), The Waldstein Sonata (completed posthumously in 1975 by Daniel Lewis), and excerpts from A Choreographic Offering and There is a Time.[8][9][24]
  • Works by Gerald Arpino, former artistic director of the Chicago-based Joffrey Ballet, staged by Cameron Basden—a former Joffrey principal dancer, principal Arpino répétiteur, and board member of the Gerald Arpino Foundation.[1][21] Documented Arpino restagings include Light Rain Pas de Deux, Touch Me, and The Relativity of Icarus.[24] In May 2023, Dance NOW! Miami presented Basden's reconstruction of The Relativity of Icarus, a 12-minute work for three dancers that had premiered at New York City Center in October 1974 and been performed by the Joffrey only once, leaving very limited archival material; the original score by Minneapolis Symphony composer Gerhard Samuel had also been lost.[21] Basden located an alternative recording of Samuel's music from a 1971 performance at San Francisco's Fireman's Fund Theater to make the reconstruction possible.[21] Baumgarten described the reconstruction as "monumental"; the work was performed at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts and the Aventura Arts and Cultural Center, with David Jewett as Daedalus, Anthony Velazquez as Icarus, and Julia Faris as the Sun.[21]
  • Edward Stierle's Lacrymosa, a Mozart-scored ballet Stierle created in the 1980s as a response to the AIDS crisis and dedicated to the memory of Robert Joffrey; Dance NOW! Miami performed the work in Miami Beach in May 2017, in a story reported by Alicia Zuckerman of WLRN for NPR's Here & Now. Salterini returned to the stage in the role of Death for the company's first presentation of the reconstruction.[25]

New Voices

Dance NOW! Miami's "New Voices" series presents work by emerging living choreographers.[1] Documented participants include Chris Rudd and Angela Gallo.[1]

Guest choreographers (established artists)

Alongside "Masterpiece in Motion" restagings and "New Voices" premieres, Dance NOW! Miami has also commissioned or restaged works by senior living choreographers who are not part of the emerging-artist track. Documented examples include:

  • Daniel Lewis: In 2019, Dance NOW! Miami co-premiered Lewis's Women II, a #MeToo-themed work for eight dancers with a commissioned score by Canadian composer Martin Swerdlow, at the Miami Dance Futures concert at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex; it was Lewis's first new work in 25 years.[26][7] The company restaged Lewis's 1981 Open Book, a work addressing depression and mental illness set to music by Mahler, Wagner, and Rossini, and performed it for more than 500 Miami-Dade County Public Schools students. In October 2024, Dance NOW! Miami and New World School of the Arts jointly celebrated Lewis's 80th birthday at the New World School of the Arts Dance Theater in Miami with a performance of Open Book.[27]
  • Carolyn Dorfman: Dorfman's Odisea has appeared in the company's active repertory.[1]
  • Tandy Beal: Heisenberg's Principle, a solo Beal created in the early 1980s and later documented by the University of Washington Dance Program, was the final work performed by Salterini before his temporary retirement from the stage at age 45.[28] Salterini returned to the stage at age 50 for the company's 2017 reconstruction of Stierle's Lacrymosa.[25] Beal's Forest Dreams, a modern-dance work described by Salterini as evoking a "sculptural landscape" traversed in wide runs and shifting planes, appeared on the company's 2025–26 season and was presented as part of "Masterpiece in Motion."[29] Beal's The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light, a 1986–87 work originally commissioned by the San Francisco New Performance Festival, has also entered the company's active repertory; the Los Angeles Times described it as "rigorous yet kaleidoscopic" in a 1988 year-end review.[30]
  • Jon Lehrer: New York–based contemporary choreographer and artistic director of Jon Lehrer Dance Company. Dance NOW! Miami first added Lehrer's Solstice to its repertory on the December 2021 Stories for the Holidays program, keeping the piece in rotation for two seasons.[23] In December 2025, Lehrer's company returned as special guest for Dance NOW! Miami's Program I Winter's Breath at Sanctuary of the Arts in Coral Gables, performing Here in Eden on a shared program that included the world premiere of Salterini's Deco-de.[31]

Miami Open Stage

Dance NOW! Miami hosts "Miami Open Stage," an annual showcase for emerging choreographers held at the Little Haiti Cultural Center.[32] Selected choreographers present their work on a fully produced stage without production costs and take audience questions in a moderated post-performance discussion.[32] Featured participants have included Chris Rudd, Angela Fegers, and Lazaro Godoy.[32] Rudd described the program as "a miracle" for emerging choreographers, adding: "To be able to put your work on a real stage at no cost is a miracle, take advantage of it."[32]

Ekphrasis Project

Ekphrasis is a migrating, site-specific dance-and-visual-art project conceived by Baumgarten and Salterini in which Dance NOW! Miami performs live choreography inside museums, galleries, and architectural landmarks in response to current exhibitions or the setting itself.[33][34] Baumgarten has described ekphrasis as "a process through which one medium reacts to—and transforms—another," adding that "a site becomes a voice, and without it the dance piece wouldn't stand."[34] Documented editions include:

  • Ekphrasis Four at the Bass Museum of Art, June 2, 2013, in which live choreography was staged through the museum's upstairs gallery in response to Eve Sussman's video installation The Rape of the Sabine Women.[33]
  • Ekphrasis in the Monastery at the Ancient Spanish Monastery in North Miami Beach, March 2019, also presented in December 2023.[35]
  • Freeze Frame (September 2022), a three-site public-art edition presented across Miami Beach as a Miami Beach OnStage encore, with choreography by Baumgarten and dances staged at Joep van Lieshout's Humanoids in Collins Canal Park (Bubbles), Elmgreen & Dragset's Bent Pool in Pride Park (The Deep End), and Dan Graham's Morris at 1111 Plaza on Lincoln Road (Trapped!); the score for the last work was composed by Cliff Sutton for a four-piece marimba and cajón ensemble performing onsite.[34]
  • The Thinker's Thoughts (2023), a site-specific dance-theater edition with Susie K. Taylor at Locust Projects in Miami, staged inside Rafael Domenech's installation assembling beneath a desire for sabotage.[36]

Educational programs and residencies

Dance NOW! Miami operates year-round dance-education programming from the Little Haiti Cultural Complex, including free open classes for intermediate to professional-level dancers, Dance in Public Schools residencies supported by the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and The Children's Trust, and the Dance NOW! Miami Summer Program: The Company Experience (formerly the World Dance Summer Intensive).[1][37] Co-artistic directors Baumgarten and Salterini have taught in national and international dance-training partnerships including Interlochen Center for the Arts, the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Mercyhurst University, and Brazil's Mostra Dança festival.[24]

Since 2012, Baumgarten and Salterini have also been on the faculty of the Joffrey Ballet School. Salterini has served as Artistic Director of Joffrey Italy, the school's summer intensive in Italy, since 2024, and the two have jointly served as Co-Artistic Directors of the Joffrey Miami Ballet and Joffrey Miami Jazz & Contemporary Summer Intensives.[5][38][39]

Daniel Lewis Miami Dance Sampler

The Daniel Lewis Miami Dance Sampler is an annual multi-company showcase of Florida dance artists that Dance NOW! Miami took over in 2011.[40] The Sampler was founded nearly two decades earlier by Daniel Lewis, choreographer and founding dean of dance at New World School of the Arts, who originally presented modern-dance companies at the Colony Theatre on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach.[40] Under Dance NOW! Miami, the 2011 revival at the Little Haiti Cultural Center was produced in conjunction with Daniel Lewis' Miami Dance Futures and the Florida Dance Educational Organization; in 2016 the program moved to New World School of the Arts, which became a collaborator.[40] Baumgarten and Salterini serve as artistic directors and co-curators of the Sampler with Lewis, presenting each year a rotating roster of professional (non-amateur) companies with proven annual seasons in order to represent the Miami-Dade dance community. The Sampler is typically presented in October as the local dance community's season opener. The 2018 edition presented 11 companies including Momentum Dance Company, Dimensions Dance Theatre of Miami, Ballet Flamenco La Rosa, Pioneer Winter Collective, Arts Ballet Theatre, Karen Peterson and Dancers, and Alma Dance Theater.[40]

Other recurring programs

Other named programs have included Contemporanea (2017), Bridges NOT Walls, "Fall for Dance Now!," "Men Who Dance," and Clara, the last presented in conjunction with Italy's Compagnia Opus Ballet.[22][3]

Recognition

Miami New Times named Dance NOW! Miami "Best Dance Company" in its 2022 list of the ten best dance companies in Miami, describing the company as knowing "how to keep it fresh" in its 22nd year.[3] The 2022 season included the programs "Fall for Dance Now!," "Men Who Dance," and Clara.[3]

Dance NOW! Miami has appeared in Dance Magazine feature coverage and its monthly performance-pick columns.[41] The company has also been reviewed by British dance publication Wonderful World of Dance for its 2017 Contemporanea program.[22]

Advocacy and public statements

In July 2024 Dance NOW! Miami was among the more than 600 Florida arts organizations affected when Governor Ron DeSantis used a line-item veto to eliminate all state arts funding for the 2024–25 fiscal year, cutting an approximately $32 million appropriation to zero.[42] Dance Magazine reported that Dance NOW! Miami was deprived of $25,457 in state arts funding and characterized the situation as "state-sponsored censorship" in an appeal to donors.[42] The company's associate director Allyn Ginns Ayers, who is also vice president of Miami Dance Hub and director of LegalARTLink, told the magazine that "concerted action must remain ongoing" and that "consistent advocacy is key to registering the importance of arts funding with elected officials."[42]

Leadership

Dance NOW! Miami is led by its co-founders and co-artistic directors, Hannah Baumgarten and Diego Salterini.[1][2] Allyn Ginns Ayers serves as associate director.[42]

See also

References

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