Rosie Herrera, center, works through a scene with dancers for her piece, <em>Various Stages of Drowning: A Cabaret</em>, for the American Dance Festival at Duke.

JARED LAZARUS/DUKE PHOTOGRAPHY

Hialeah choreographer brings a unique South Florida mix to American Dance Festival

The grand pillars and ornate interior of Baldwin Auditorium here on the oak-covered grounds of Duke University are a world away from Rosie Herrera's native Hialeah. And the polyglot group of earnest dancers assembled onstage for rehearsal this steamy Southern afternoon -- from Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Germany, Spain, Thailand, Russia, and the American heartland -- know nothing of the pulsing Latin clubs and drag queen extravaganzas that have shaped her as a performer and director.

Dance of a lifetime: Miami choreographer goes national

ENTERTAINMENT

Dancer soars after life on Haiti's streets

A performer who started out as an orphan dancing for pennies in Haiti is one of four South Floridians vying on a TV dance competition.
Artist explores our destruction of the planet in 'Vertical Sprawl'

The daughter of Quakers, growing up on an organic farm, Heather Maloney has heard talk of sustainability her whole life. Maybe that's why she's puzzled by the current vogue for going green. 'Sometimes when you're thinking about being a good citizen, you say, `Oh, I must recycle,' '' she says, her hands fluttering so gracefully to illustrate her point that she is almost dancing in her seat. ``It's not always about conservation though. It's a question of how much do you need?''
DANCE

In 'Two Worlds,' choreographers share a stage

Things measured in one hundred: 100 degrees Celsius (the boiling point of water), 100 yards (the length of a football field minus the end zones). Centuries and centenarians. Colombian novelist Gabriel Garc�a Marquez chose to measure out his treatise on love, sex and loss as One Hundred Years of Solitude. And who can forget the feverishly dissected first hundred days of Barack Obama's presidency?
DANCE

Brandishing unique bodies, troupe triumphs

An hour before the curtain rises, the choreographer stands alone on stage, nervously gazing at the rows of empty seats. Heidi Latsky is about to unveil the boldest, most important performance of her life.
DANCE

Review | 'Tango Undressed' is a sexy affair

Tango Undressed, Ray Sullivan's ambitious evening-length examination of the tango for his Miami Contemporary Dance Company, tackles the formidable and fascinating idea of uncovering the personal and emotional dramas underlying this supremely sexy and dramatic dance form.
Born to fly: Show brings dancing daughter home for Mother's Day

People make these jokes about running away and joining the circus. I didn't realize anyone actually followed through until one of my own family members did.
SOUTH FLORIDA ARTS SCENE

Classical Diaghilev piece to close out ABT season

Arts Ballet Theatre of Florida presents its season finale on Saturday and May 3 in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Led by veteran Russian-trained ballet master Vladimir Issaev, the company will perform one of the most famous works from Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, Michel Fokine's Le Spectre de la Rose, which shows a dreaming girl and a rose that leaps to life, staged for ABT by former Ballet Russes dancer George Zoritch.
`MONUMENTAL'

Choreographer steps out on her own

Watching a performer over an extended period of time is akin to listening in on an intimate conversation. Choreographer and solo performer Ros Warby's conversation begins with two mentors and ends with a swan and a soldier. The latter shimmer and stomp in her award-winning solo piece Monumental, which makes its South Florida premiere Friday and Saturday at the Adrienne Arsht Center's Carnival Studio Theater.
Alvin Ailey's troupe keeps his brilliance alive at Miami's Arsht Center

You could feel every one of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's 50 years on Thursday night, but not because all those decades and legacy weigh them down.
A time to dance: Ailey's 50 years of celebrating the wonder of humanity

The troupe started like almost all modern-dance companies started back in the mid-20th century, with a tiny group of unpaid dancers gathered by a choreographer with a vision and no money. That kind of effort usually lasted one performance. That the choreographer, Alvin Ailey, was a black man who wanted to show black American life in all its full-fleshed humanity in 1958 -- when racism and segregation were rampant, the civil rights movement was radical, and images of black people outside...
CELEBRITIES

Dancing out from under Alonso's shadow

Lorena Feijoo, prima ballerina of the San Francisco Ballet and once the star of the internationally celebrated Ballet Nacional de Cuba, has appeared on far more important stages than the one on which she danced in late March when she performed the lead in Carmen at Miami's Gusman Center for the Performing Arts.
MIAMI DANCE FESTIVAL

Festival will be dancing around the issues

In the face of an abysmal economy, Momentum Dance Company this week offers a sign-of-the-times performance with a humorous bent: Obamanomics takes on Fannie and Freddie Mac, golden parachutes, budget stretching and belt-tightening. Audience participation is encouraged.
BALLET

Cuban dancer returns to `forbidden territory'

Lorena Feijoo was born to be a dancer in Cuba, being the daughter of Lupe Calzadilla, a leading ballerina with the Cuban National Ballet.
Dancers stepping out in new territory

A small group of current and former Miami City Ballet dancers will try out new ideas in new territory this Saturday. Seanik, headed by former MCB principal dancer Mikhail Nikitine and his wife Deanna Seay, a veteran lead dancer with MCB, hopes to bring together ideas and audiences from the dance, music and visual arts worlds.
DANCE

Miami City Ballet's season finale comes with energy, romance

With so much uncertainty these days, there is something reassuring about the order and beauty of ballet -- and the escape it provides. In Miami City Ballet's final program of the season, which opened Friday night at Fort Lauderdale's Broward Center for the Performing Arts, two Balanchine gems bookended the company premiere of an elusively romantic work by Jerome Robbins, each dance a consuming, tiny universe.
DANCE

They'll be stepping into the wild side

When Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) premiered in Paris in 1913, the audience was so unsettled by the ballet's rough, primitive-looking movement and its pounding, dissonant score -- choreographed by the consummate tortured artist Vaslav Nijinsky and composed by Igor Stravinsky -- a full-on riot erupted.
ARTS

Celebration will honor Miami artist, teacher

A celebration of the life of Miami artist Luciano Franchi de Alfaro III will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday at the Main Gallery of Miami International University of Art & Design, 1501 Biscayne Blvd., which also is showing a memorial retrospective of his works. Franchi had taught art history and design at the school.
BALLET GAMONET

Fewer donations suspend Miami's Ballet Gamonet troupe

Ballet Gamonet, the determined contemporary ballet troupe run by former Miami City Ballet choreographer Jimmy Gamonet De Los Heros, has suspended operations for the rest of the season.
DANCE REVIEW

Here & Now Festival gives visual workout to audience

Whatever else you might say about the Here & Now Festival, it's not boring. And this year's edition, which opened Thursday and runs through Saturday at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, offers plenty for mind and eye to relish: dancing on air, soaking surrealism and tragically squashed birthday cakes.