Dance

Arts Ballet Theatre Opens With New Prima Ballerina, Latin Flavor

Written By Michelle F. Solomon
September 11, 2017 at 7:41 PM

When former Miami City Ballet prima ballerina Mary Carmen Catoya debuts as Arts Ballet Theatre (ABT) of Florida’s principal dancer, it will be a double reunion of sorts.

She danced with ABT’s guest choreographer, Alberto Méndez, in his work Tarde en la Siesta years ago. “I did many ballets with him,” she says, including the part of the youngest sister in Tarde en la Siesta. Catoya was 14 years old and dancing in her native Venezuela with Ballet Nacional de Caracas. The piece will be performed when ABT opens its season on Saturday with “Ballets With Latin Flavor,” but Catoya will not be part of Tarde this time around. No worries. There are plenty of other opportunities to see her

She’s also reunited with ABT’s artistic director and ballet master, Vladimir Issaev, who she considers a mentor. While a young ballerina at the Ballet Nacional de Caracas, she was coached by Issaev. “My passion and my love is dance, and it’s wonderful to continue this chapter of my career with my former teacher,” says Catoya, who adds that working with Issaev is different now because she has “maturity and patience. Now I want to take everything that life has given me and apply it.”

No show featuring Catoya is complete without seeing her dance Kitri in Don Quixote, a role that has become her signature. She danced the part to great acclaim when Miami City Ballet became the first resident company during the inaugural year of the then Carnival Center for the Performing Arts (now the Arsht Center) in 2006 and in other MCB seasons, and has performed the work many times throughout her career.

In the ABT opener, audiences will not see her dance a full length Don Q. For this program, it’s the Grand Pas from the ballet. No matter how many times she’s danced the role, though, she says that she “always finds a new detail. There’s always a challenge, working with different dancers, and when you have that opportunity, it’s amazing.”

There also will be a first for Catoya in the Grand Pas of Laurencia, a classical repertoire piece that ABT claims is rarely seen in the United States. “When I was very little, I would hear always that ‘one day you could dance the part of Laurencia.’ And this is the first time I am.”

The ballet, by Vakhtang Chabukiani to music by Alexander Crain, is based on Spanish playwright’s Lope de Vega’s Fuente Ovenjuna, an early 17th century play about a village uprising in 1476.

The mood switches to modern for Alberto Méndez’s piece Eros’ Game, formerly titled Suite Generis. “I decided to change it a bit and I changed the choreography, too, so I gave it a new name,” says the choreographer. The Pas de Trois features Catoya with two male dancers, Ramil Bagmanov and Alexei Minkin, in what Méndez says is a ballet with “no story, just suggestions.” The ballet — named after the god of love in Greek mythology — is danced to the music of George Frideric Handel and Franz Joseph Haydn.

Catoya explains that what’s most integral to the piece is the connection of the three dancers and the connection they create with the audience. “It has a different quality to it. You have to use every part of your body — your eyes, your eyelashes, there’s no part of your body that you don’t use. I have discovered different muscles. When you are doing classical you have to remember, ‘I have this muscle,’ but for this piece you have to use every muscle in your body.”

Other works on the program are Fuga con Pajarillo and Suite of Waltzes, both choreographed by Issaev.

Since taking her final leap with the Miami City Ballet last April, Catoya has kept busy. This past summer, she was a guest teacher at Issaev’s School of Classical Ballet — “I try, when I teach, to pass my best on to the students.” She danced with Gulfshore Ballet in Fort Myers and Ballet Now in Los Angeles. Catoya says there is more work in the pipeline, but she is not able to divulge specifics yet.

She is specific about this: the 41 year old has no plans to stop dancing. “You close one chapter and they say that every time new things come in for some reason,” she muses. “And then one more time I am working with Maestro Mendez and Maestro Issaev.”

Performances of” Ballets with Latin Flavor,” Saturday at 7:00 p.m. and Sunday, at 3:00 p.m., Aventura Arts & Cultural Center, 3385 N.E. 188th St., Aventura.; tickets $30; 954.462.0222 or www.aventuracenter.org.

And

Saturday, Oct. 17 at 7:00 p.m., and Sunday, Oct. 18 at 3:00 p.m., Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Amaturo Theater, 201 SW 5th Avenue, Ft. Lauderdale; tickets $30; 954.462.0222. www.browardcenter.org. More information at 305.935.3232 or www.artsballettheatre.org.

 

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