The XIII International Ballet Festival of Miami's centerpiece performance at the Adrienne Arsht Center on Saturday night displayed everything that makes the festival wonderful and frustrating. Dancers from across the globe showed off stunning technical prowess and cringe-inducing mediocrity. There were vivid performances of fine modern pieces from key choreographers and uninspired renditions of overdone classics.

The question now is which of those weaknesses can be eliminated and which are an inevitable result of the event's structure and finite funding. The festival has grown considerably since its debut, thanks to its indomitable director, Pedro Pablo Peña. It has many more shows and a wider and better selection of companies and repertory.

Still, the cost of bringing dancers means that we get a string of pas de deux, which gets monotonous, tends to limit artistic depth and can favor the showiest dancers rather than the most cultivated. Joseph Phillips, a corps dancer from American Ballet Theatre, was thrillingly athletic in the pyrotechnicalfrom Flames of Paris pas de deux (with a strong but choppy Misty Copeland), but do we really need to see this Soviet chestnut? In the Pas d'Esclave from Le Corsaire, another beloved exercise in cheesey bravura, Ballet do Theatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro's Victor Luis was flamboyantly virile and fun to watch. But the exaggerated mannerisms and weak technique of his partner Cecelia Kerche were not.

By contrast, Keiko Amemori, a lovely, subtle dance actress, and Kenneth Tindall of England's Northern Ballet Theater gave a moving and nuanced performance in a duet from David Nixon's version of Puccini's Madame Butterfly that left you hungry for more. The Royal Ballet of Flanders' Courtney Richardson and Ernesto Boada were superb in the slashing geometry of William Forsythe's in the middle somewhat elevated, a key piece from a key contemporary choreographer almost unknown here. Also thrilling were Ana Maria Lopez and Francisco Lorenzo of Spain's Nacho Duato Compañia Nacional de Danza in the tautly sweeping Cor Perdut by Duato, another globally prominent dancemaker.

Audiences love classic pas de deux, and there's a virtue in seeing how dancers do these standard-setting showpieces -- so long as they bring something to them. Mayuko Nihei of Mexico's Compania Nacional de Danza was pretty but insipid in Fokine's famous Dying Swan solo. On the other hand, Cubana Hayna Gutierrez of the Cuban Classical Ballet of Miami brought delicious verve to the Don Quixote pas de deux. And Shoko Nakamura of Staatsballet Berlin showed a seductive combination of delicate purity and technical steel in the Black Swan pas de deux.

The range of nationalities on display was fascinating. The three Japanese women work in England, Mexico and Germany. Boada of the Flanders company is from Cuba. Good dance and dancers can come from anywhere these days. The Festival's challenge is to choose well.

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