Things to Do in Miami: Peter London Global Dance Company at Sanctuary of the Arts

Two themes emerge in Peter London Global Dance Company’s “Women’s Choreographic Voices: the Rising.” They are the celebration of ladies choreographers, dancers, and performers, and Argentine tango as a medium for expressing artistic passions.

On Saturday, April 1, the Sanctuary of the Arts program in Coral Gables spotlights the feminine inventive spirit with new productions and two world premieres by Peter London Global Dance Company dancers and choreographers Kashia Kancey and Brooke Skye Logan.

A dance professor at New World School of the Arts for the reason that early Nineties, London counts lots of the rising choreographers on this system as former highschool or school college students from dance packages at New World. Some dancers began coaching after they have been even youthful on the Pinecrest dance studio, Dance Empire, the place London additionally taught.

Kancey is a former London pupil from New World who grew up in Miami’s Overtown neighborhood. Her new work “Merged” is a duet that includes Tt’Shaylah Lightbourn and Clinton Harris.

For Kancey, the work is about merging two souls.

“It’s about having somebody in your life regardless of the place they’re on the earth,” explains Kancey. “You are each nonetheless related, sensing, and in fixed dialog.”

Kancey set the choreography to an authentic composition by former New World school pal Cristina Moya-Palacios. As an artist, Moya-Palacios’ coaching blurs the road between dancer and musician.

“My first introduction to music was by piano classes as a child,” says Moya-Palacios. “As I received older, I ultimately turned a dancer and continued to be impressed by these classes and commenced to discover making scores on [the app] GarageBand.”

Another premiere in this system, “Wildflower’s Luminous Prayer,” was created for the corporate’s ensemble by Logan, a choreographer and former London dance pupil.

Like “Merged,” Logan’s new work took inspiration, title, and construction from a brand new composition by a feminine composer, violinist Ari Urban. Logan titled the solo first motion “Wildflower” and the second motion “Luminous Prayer.”

“This is my first work with your entire firm, and I’m very excited,” says Logan. “There are seven dancers within the group part and a soloist [Leon Cobb] at first of the work.”

When requested what motivated the creation, she says it got here from reflecting on the query: “How lovely it might be if we might all simply fall in love with humanity?”

Another piece by the choreographer, “Eomeoni,” additionally makes use of dance to speak a common message.

“The title refers back to the phrase ‘mom,'” she explains. The Peter London Global Dance Company premiered the work in 2018. “It is one among my most prized works. I’d describe this piece as a name to humanity. To see and love each other as [he or she] actually is.”

The themes of ladies and tango intersect in Melissa Verdecia’s “Que se encuentra Los Arrabales,” a brand new manufacturing of an organization work that premiered in 2015. Verdencia, a former pupil of London’s at New World, attended Juilliard after which was a soloist with Ballet Hispánico, primarily based in New York City.

“I used to be positively not attempting to recreate an genuine tango,” Verdecia says of her work, “however use the information that I had discovered in regards to the Argentine tango’s origins — the way it developed over the many years on account of different cultural influences, such because the African dance tradition after which [also the] extra generally recognized European traditions of waltz and polka that finally led the tango to be generally often called a ballroom model dance.”

When requested how Argentine tango got here to determine so prominently in a program celebrating girls, London relates his first experiences of Buenos Aires and the power he felt whereas touring there.

“I carried out in Argentina in 1988 for the primary time with José Limón Dance after which once more later with Martha Graham Dance,” he says. “When José Limón carried out in Buenos Aires, they instructed me to go to Calle Florida (Florida Street). When I stepped onto that road, I used to be struck by the power, the gown, the swagger and class, and the cafés — it was simply fabulous.”

He remembers that he danced tango till 5 a.m. whereas sweating to the bone.

“I all the time felt like I wanted to specific the emotion and the sensation of Buenos Aires of that point in a dance.”

London’s experiences in Buenos Aires turned the stuff of London’s personal “Calle Florida” — a 2015 piece additionally on the upcoming program, set to tango music and reprised by dancer Isabelle Vazquez, one among London’s former college students from New World.

“When I noticed her (Vazquez) dancing it for the primary time,” explains London, “she danced it like she was transported, and your entire room exploded in applause.”

The full firm will carry out London’s piece, “Kaiso Bacchanal,” with costumes by the choreographer. London describes the work as a colourful explosion of rhythm and fiery motion that brings to life the Carnival celebrations of Trinidad & Tobago.

With so many contributions from former college students on this system, it may very well be anticipated that London would have deep involvement of their artistic course of. On the opposite, London insists that after he commissions new work, he takes a strictly hands-off method.

And for a great purpose. London’s former college students come full of expertise and beauty the lineups of the nation’s high dance corporations, together with Alvin Ailey, Martha Graham Dance, Paul Taylor Dance, and Dance Theater of Harlem. They embrace Robert Battle, present inventive director of Alvin Ailey, and Jamar Roberts, Alvin Ailey’s first resident choreographer.

Still, he admits typically desirous to turn out to be concerned whereas witnessing the twists and turns of their artistic processes, though he says he holds again. This was the case within the 2015 “Steppe Tango” by choreographer and dancer Armando Gonzalez, whose piece shall be carried out within the upcoming program.

Gonzalez began dancing with London at 14 and is now a principal dancer with the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève, Switzerland.

“Armando used Bulgarian Folk music to open the dance, and I assumed, Why is he doing that for tango?” says London. “But, I assumed, These are younger folks, and depart them alone.”

The final result was Gonzalez’s “Steppe Tango,” set to Mongolian throat music and Argentine tango.

Gonzalez, whose mom is Argentine, did not develop up listening to tango, however he was interested in the dance kind.

“The dance kind has all the time had a particular place in my coronary heart. Astor Piazzolla is tremendous danceable,” provides Gonzalez referring to the Argentine classical composer (1921-1992) who created compositions that included tango rhythms and iconic devices just like the bandoneón in his works. “There have been numerous ballets created to [Piazzolla’s] music,” continues Gonzalez. “Around the time Peter requested me to choreograph, I used to be watching a Netflix sequence set in Mongolia. The throat singing was fascinating, so I attempted to combine the 2 and see if it might work… and surprisingly, to my ears, it did.”

– Sean Erwin, ArtburstMiami.com

Peter London Global Dance Company presents “Women’s Choreographic Voices: the Rising.” 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 1, at Sanctuary of the Arts, 410 Andalusia Ave., Coral Gables; 786-362-5132; pldc.org. Tickets price $25.