Miami City Ballet, in season's first program, goes back to its roots

Miami City Ballet opened its season Friday night with Allegro Brillante, the same piece that opened the company's first performance in 1986. Allegro is a condensed and fractured primer of George Balanchine's vision of classical ballet, and as such was a kind of linchpin for the company's development -- and in a different way, for this season as well. There are no new ballets slated this year, and so the pleasures of this first program at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts -- and the ones we have to look forward to -- are those already built into the repertory, the style and the dancers that are there.

DANCE

Trimmed-down ballet set for a lean season

Like much of the rest of the world, Miami City Ballet has been on a financial and professional roller coaster in the past year, including some artistic and career highs.

DANCE

No limitations for the disabled

Choreographer Karen Peterson has been making pieces for disabled dancers, people whose ability to move has been changed by muscular dystrophy or other ailments, for 20 years. But when she met visual and video artist Maria Lino, Peterson discovered a collaborator who brought a new vision into her dancemaking -- insight that stemmed from the many years Lino lived with her quadriplegic brother, who had cerebral palsy.

Dance fever: International Ballet Festival offers a mix of youth and experience

The 14th International Ballet Festival of Miami, presented by the Miami Hispanic Ballet, opens this weekend with its traditional mix of young dancers who have won international competitions, plus more experienced modern and contemporary ballet troupes.

MERCE CUNNINGHAM, 90

His artistic vision changed modern dance

Merce Cunningham, the endlessly inquisitive choreographer who revolutionized modern dance and helped change the course of modern art, died Sunday night at his Manhattan apartment. He was 90. A spokeswoman for the Cunningham Dance Foundation said Cunningham died in his sleep of natural causes.

Brazilian kids fulfill a dream at Miami City Ballet School

When 13-year-old Gabrielle Verissimo talks about her neighborhood of Gardenia Azul, in Rio de Janeiro, her wide-eyed face, already stretched tight by hair pulled into a sleek bun, grows still more taut. In Gardenia Azul, drug gangs battle paramilitaries for control and most people can only aspire to jobs as maids or construction workers.

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.

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 García 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.

World's rising ballet stars in Miami

RISING STARS AT BALLET CAMP: The Miami City Ballet Summer Intensive is a program that takes about 200 of the best dancers from around the world for a mixture of discipline, hard work and comradery. The eager dancers are training five days a week this summer at the Miami Beach facility.