When choreographer Ray Sullivan was a boy, he used to sit on the counter of his Italian grandmother's kitchen to watch her cook, fascinated by the spaghetti tossing in the pot of boiling water.

``I would say `The pasta is dancing,' '' says Sullivan, now 39. ``It was so amazing. There was no money, but all my aunts and uncles and relatives would come over, and somehow there would be food for everyone.''

That experience was the inspiration for one of Sullivan's rare comedic pieces, Nonna's Pasta Dances, in which he plays his grandmother in a tribute to happily extroverted Italian American families. This sense of wonder and determination has also helped Sullivan keep his Miami Contemporary Dance Company alive and thriving in an era when many modern dance troupes were struggling even before the economic downturn gutted arts funding.

The Miami Beach-based troupe celebrates its 10th season Saturday with an ambitious gala concert at the Fillmore Miami Beach. If Sullivan is worried about the performance, which includes excerpts from 12 pieces as well as the premieres of his versions of Ravel's Bolero and The Dying Swan, he is determined to stay positive. The event was planned a year and a half ago, and since then MCDC has lost more than $100,000 in funding, three dancers and two administrators and has had to cut from 32 to 21 the number of paid weeks for its six dancers.

``I feel really blessed that we're still here,'' says Sullivan, bundled up in fleece vest and cap in his troupe's studio off the lobby of Seacoast Suites, a Miami Beach condo building, where even three space heaters can't remove the chill of a recent afternoon. ``No doubt, things are tremendously reduced this season. . . . But I feel very hopeful because I think we're going to move on to a beautiful time in the world. The way we grow as people is the most important thing, and as long as Miami Contemporary Dance Company can represent that, we'll be around.''

Indeed, Sullivan often tackles social themes in ambitious, evening-length works. MCDC debuted in 2001 with Signs of Life, a reaction to the events of 9/11. Since then Sullivan has looked at AIDS in Africa with Your Blood, My Blood; immigration in Letters to America, the tsunami in Southeast Asia and Hurricane Katrina in Asiasong on our Soil. Tango Undressed, inspired by Sullivan's years dancing in Argentina, is a sexy audience favorite, but it also examines intimacy and sexuality in a provocative, serious way.

Sullivan's combination of serious themes, challenging technique and organizational ability has consistently drawn fine dancers, who usually stay for years.

``Ray has a really big heart,'' says Colleen Farnum, the long-limbed, flame-haired dancer who has been with MCDC for six years. ``He's always thinking about the world and what it is to be human.''

For Mark Millner, who joined two years ago after working with several ballet companies, ``Every piece I've done with Ray is about life. The emotions are so much more real.''

Sullivan has studied and performed ballet and classic modern dance, including five years with Argentina's El Ballet Contemporaneo de Teatro San Martin. He taught modern dance at Miami City Ballet School from 2000 to 2004 and is known as a teacher as well as choreographer.

Bolero and Dying Swan are the first of what Sullivan hopes will be a series of pieces created for seminal musical and theatrical works, including Rite of Spring, Carmen and Afternoon of a Faun. But his vision is neither abstract or sentimental. In Bolero, repetitive, martial movement that mirrors Ravel's relentless rhythms is interrupted by moments where the dancers dangle limbs and heads like abandoned marionettes.

``I saw a connection between the structure and passion and almost abandon in the music, and this almost military structure,'' Sullivan says. ``The musical theme is so mesmerizing and penetrating, you can feel controlled by it. You want more, but at the end it's almost too much. I compare it to something in your life -- can you be your own person?''

Sullivan was inspired to remake The Dying Swan, the poignant 1905 Michel Fokine solo made famous by Anna Pavlova, by seeing a bird die after flying into a plate glass window. Sullivan set it on male dancer Geo Macia, because he wanted to show not only ``the swan inside the man that's not allowed to come out'' but also the glorious intensity of dancing.

``If I were to go the way I wanted, this is how I would go,'' Sullivan says. ``I wanted death to become an ascension, a flowering, something intimate. Wouldn't it be nice to face our mortality on our own terms?''

Sullivan is also trying to see his performance at the Fillmore on his own terms. ``We don't do galas, but we wanted a celebration,'' he says. ``I just hope people enjoy it.''

Though he recently sprained his foot badly, he is determined to reprise his role of Nonna in Pasta Dances on Saturday night.

``I have to do it,'' he says. ``Somehow Nonna is going to hobble on.''