DURHAM, N.C. -- 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.

Herrera, however, seems right at home here at the American Dance Festival. It is the largest, most prestigious modern dance event in the United States, fabled cradle for choreographers ranging from Martha Graham and Twyla Tharp to newer luminaries like Ohad Naharin and Mark Dendy. The commission Herrera has received to re-create her surreal dance theater piece Various Stages of Drowning: A Cabaret with the festival's accomplished student dancers for a performance here later this month, could send her fledgling career into a whole other stratosphere.

The prospect of success or failure here could be thoroughly intimidating. But Herrera, retro cats eye glasses perched on her nose, in pajama-like rehearsal gear and socks, is happily, utterly concentrated on building her fantasy world on these new performers. She is charming but very clear about what she wants, with a humor that can leave them taken aback as well as laughing.

''Good job!'' she says, smacking the behind of a startled Sasha Lyubashin, a lanky graduate of a St. Petersburg conservatory for ballet choreography, as he finally puts some force into a homoerotically charged duet with Spaniard Eneko Gil. ''Don't get distracted by the baby,'' she warns the group of an infant brought in by his mother, who has offered to translate for some of the Asian dancers. ``Isn't he cute? Let's eat him.''

It's a remark that's characteristic of Drowning -- comically over the top, but with an uncomfortable edge. ''This is very much not ballet,'' Lyubashin says later. ``I never heard of Rosie Herrera before. But I am happy.''

So is Herrera, mixed with awe that she is here at all. ''I am so honored,'' she says. ``Of course I feel completely intimidated. But I'm here to do my work.''

At 26, she is younger than some of her performers. ``In a way I wish I could just be here as a dancer. It's so amazing to be around all these people who are at the height of their profession, and they're so normal -- I call it elegant normal. They are so cool, and not at all what you expect.''

FIRST IMPRESSION

Herrera, too, was an unexpected discovery to American Dance Festival director Charles L. Reinhart, who saw Drowning when it was first performed in March as part of the Miami Light Project's Here and Now Festival at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. An influential figure whose 54 years in dance have included managing such renowned artists as Paul Taylor and Meredith Monk, and being artistic director of the Kennedy Center, Reinhart knew nothing of Herrera when he agreed to come see the up-and-coming Miami choreographers featured at Here and Now.

'I saw it once and I thought `wow,' '' says Reinhart, sitting in his office in a rambling white clapboard building. ``I saw it the second night, and I thought wow!''

Soon after, Reinhart contacted an astonished Herrera and offered to bring her to ADF to teach Drowning to students for performances in the festival's Past/Forward program July 20-22.

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