Dance Meets Two Pianos in a New DDTM-Dranoff Collaboration

Jennifer Kronenberg and Carlos Guerra in the DDTM 2016 premiere of “Ante El
Escorial” by Yanis Pikieris, which is featured on the “Summer Dances & 2 Pianos program at the Moss Center on Saturday, July 11. (Photo by Simon Soong, courtesy of Dimension Dance Theatre of Miami)

A partnership between two performing arts groups has a double-edged component. The goal of the collaboration between Dimensions Dance Theatre of Miami (DDTM) and Dranoff 2 Piano Fusion is to not only present something new from each organization but to introduce new audiences to both organizations.

“Summer Dances & 2 Pianos” at the Dennis C. Moss Cultural Arts Center on Saturday, July 11, features DDTM company premieres by choreographer DaYoung Jung of the Oklahoma City Ballet and DDTM artist-in-residence Yanis Eric Pikieris with DDTM dancers Selah Jane Oliver and Rafael Ruiz-del-Vizo. Music will be performed by New York-based piano duo Stephanie & Saar, Stephanie Ho and Saar Ahuvia.

Ariel Morilla, Paulina Zambrana, and Rafael Ruiz del Vizo in “Summer Dances & 2 Pianos.” (Photo by Simon Soong, courtesy of Dimension Dance Theatre of Miami)

“Music and dance lend (themselves) very naturally to collaboration,” said Emily Cardenas, executive director of Dranoff.

Having spent the bulk of their careers with Miami City Ballet, DDTM co-founding Artistic Directors Jennifer Kronenberg and Carlos Guerra have a special connection to performing with live music.

“We’re used to that element of live music,” said Kronenberg. “It keeps you literally on your toes.”

She calls the give and take between live music and dance a “partnership, a joint effort that brings the performance to life in a different way than when you’re just dancing to a recording.”

Pianists Stephanie Ho and Saar Ahuvia, who perform as piano duo Stephanie and Saar, are featured in “Summer Dances & 2 Pianos” at The Moss Center on Saturday, July 11. (Photo courtesy of the artists)

Ho and Ahuvia have accompanied dancers before in Dranoff programs, including its annual multidisciplinary Piano Slam that brings together live music, dance and spoken-word poetry.

“. . . When we get on stage and perform, it’s never going to be the same,” said Ahuvia. “There is going to be a real excitement there because we are going to be in conversation with each other… It’s dangerous, it’s unpredictable, but it has that flair that we look for in a live performance: that element of surprise.”

DDTM will present the company premiere of DaYoung Jung’s “There, Never There,” set to music by composer Alfonso Peduto. Originally created for Oklahoma City Ballet in 2023, Jung expanded the work for DDTM with a new pas de deux.

Choreographer DaYoung Jung in rehearsal staging “There, Never There” on DDTM
dancers. (Photo by Simon Soong, courtesy of Dimension Dance Theatre of Miami)

Kronenberg describes the choreography style as “contemporary ballet.”

“It is definitely rooted in a classical ballet vernacular, but fuses classicism with fresh contemporary and modern movement, exploring different levels, and a deeper movement range and fluidity,” said Kronenberg.

“Fantasia de Tres Mundos,” a 2014 Dranoff commission composed by Martin Bejerano, accompanies a piece by Pikieris.

“We were the first team to premiere it, and since then we’ve played it many times,” said Ho.

Ho and Ahuvia consider it to be a “great performer’s piece” representative of Miami’s multicultural spirit.

Piano duo Stephanie & Saar performing a piano four-hands composition in concert. (Photo courtesy of the artist)

“It’s hidden in the music,” said Ahuvia. “The three worlds, or ‘Tres Mundos,’ are actually the classical world, the jazz world, and the Afro-Cuban world. These three worlds kind of come together and become one entity in this piece.”

The duo are frequent performers with Dranoff and find the collaboration between Dranoff and DDTM to be a “natural progression” of the creative projects that the music organization has been pursuing for its programming.

Both “Fantasia de Tres Mundos” and “Pastorale: River of Grass”—co-choreographed by Oliver and Ruiz, a ballet inspired by the Florida Everglades, and set to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 —are company premieres for DDTM. Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona’s work, which accompanies “Ante El Escorial,” also choreographed by Pikieris, was somewhat familiar to Dranoff, but Peduto’s blend of classical traditions with American popular genres is a new approach.

Dancers Selah Jane Oliver and Rafael Ruiz del Vizo, in a pose from their new work, “Pastorale: River of Grass,” inspired by The Everglades. (Photo by Yanni De Melo, courtesy of Dimensions Dance Theatre of Miami)

The two companies seek to create a bridge between their audiences, making the event simultaneously affordable and accessible.

“Hopefully (our audience) will go see Dranoff when they’re performing on their own, and hopefully their audience will fall in love with (DDTM) and with our work,” said Guerra.

Dranoff has been around since 1987 while DDTM is just nearing its 10th anniversary in 2027. As they grow, Kronenberg and Guerra hope to see more collaborations like this in the future.

Having spent the bulk of their careers with Miami City Ballet, DDTM co-founding Artistic Directors Carlos Guerra and Jennifer Kronenberg have a special connection to performing with live music. (Photo by Simon Soong, courtesy of Dimension Dance Theatre of Miami)

“The past few years, we’ve been pretty strategic about shaping where the company was going,” said Kronenberg. “We’re ready to navigate additional (budget) challenges. We don’t know until it’s in front of us, so we’re ready for when that happens because we don’t want to be hit in the face like we were that first year when the state funding disappeared.”

With the partnership, Cardenas hopes to create more exposure for both organizations.

“We have so much choice in Miami-Dade County,” said Cardenas. “There’s a lot of culture out there that people are just missing. I think that by fusing our two art forms, not only do we make it easier for the public, but I think it’s more enticing.”

WHAT:  Summer Dances & 2 Pianos: Dimensions Dance Theatre of Miami in collaboration with Dranoff 2 Piano Fusion, featuring Stephanie & Saar

WHERE: Dennis C. Moss Cultural Arts Center, 10950 SW 211th St., Cutler Bay

WHEN: 8 p.m. Saturday, July 11

COST:  $45, $35, $25

INFORMATION: (786) 573-5300 or www.mosscenter.org

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