To keep the International Ballet Festival of Miami on course up to its present 29th edition, director Eriberto Jiménez has relied on a bifocal guiding vision with added telescopic range. Close at hand are his myriad day-to-day administrative duties. More generally, he never loses sight of the event’s mission to unite dance across borders. And while tending to his art’s past glories, he aims to invest in its productive future.
Complemented by other activities, the festival’s contemporary and classical performances can be enjoyed at different South Florida locations beginning Friday, Aug. 2 through Sunday, Aug. 11.
The events close with the Gala of the Stars at The Fillmore Miami Beach, where the yearly dance culture and criticism recognition will be given to Perfecto Uriel, from Spain’s Casa de la Danza and Danza en Escena magazine. The previous evening, Valentina Kozlova, a Bolshoi and New York City Ballet principal emerita and more recently a sought-after educator, will receive the “A Life for Dance” award.
(Simon Soong)
Nicole Nathalia Duque and Andres Felipe Vargas of Compania Colombiana de Ballet Theatre.
This year, there are eight participating companies from abroad ranging from Uruguay and Brazil to Serbia and Romania. Compañía Nacional de Danza de México, on the roster since the start of the festival, will also return.
Jiménez coordinates festival logistics, including visa approvals, which he confides can be a concern for participants from abroad.
“Visa denials or last-minute injuries may throw off the flow of a program,” says Jiménez. He races to make rearrangements and substitutions when such cases arise, but he emphasizes that “You just can’t let that sour the artistic experience. It’s part of who I am to find a solution whenever a problem pops up.”
Joining the Latin Americans and Europeans, this edition will bring members of troupes from Milwaukee (a long-time and frequent presence), Pittsburgh and Kansas City. Performances by Cuban Classical Ballet of Miami, the company Jiménez leads, as well as Dimensions Dance Theatre of Miami (DDTM) and Arts Ballet Theatre of Florida, will round out the offerings from locals for a total of 18 troupes in the main programs.
Representing Milwaukee Ballet in the classical lineup is Cuban-born and trained ballerina Marize Fumero, who takes personal and professional pleasure in her decade of appearances here.
“In these I can see myself maturing both as an artist and a woman,” she says.
Upon her 2014 arrival in Miami, the festival opened its doors to her at the historic Warner House by the Miami River, easing Fumero’s way into a new life in the American dance arena. From then on, she’s taken to stages far and wide, but Miami still holds a special place in her heart.
(Simon Soong)
Arles Youth Ballet Company featuring Diana Brandao and Maxence Deveaux.
She said applause here seems different, closer to the sounds of family, which makes her especially happy to come back to regale audiences with a passionate scene from Kenneth MacMillan’s “Manon,” its music surging from Jules Massenet’s Romantic-era score.
While championing the bravura of the classical pas de deux with its exuberant spins, Jiménez has also secured a place for the shadows and shimmer of today’s ballet. An Imperial-to-Soviet Russian style informs his own company’s offers: a duet from “Raymonda,” with its 19th-century Marius Petipa choreography to an Alexander Glazunov score and “Diana and Acteon,” to the delight of die-hard balletomanes its grim myth transformed by literal leaps and bounds into a love fest between goddess and hunter.
(Simon Soong)
Arles Youth Ballet Company featuring Diana Brandao and Maxence Deveaux.
But then Dimensions brings two sensitively paced pairings, their tenderness and tensions closer to the pulse of our own emotions. Ryan Jolicoeur-Nye’s “On the Sky” and Yanis Eric Pikieris’s “If” will put on view more of the choreographers’ works whose premieres were warmly received at this year’s company-season finale.
“We love showing the audience a different side of ballet,” said DDTM’s artistic co-director Jennifer Kronenberg, underscoring how a relatable lyricism enhances variety at an event they’ve performed in since 2017. “It’s important for us to return because this is home. “We’re proud to contribute to a landscape we share with the festival.”
Kronenberg sums up the experience of appearing alongside international artists as “inspiring,” exactly the effect Jiménez hoped to reinforce when he took over the festival after founder Pedro Pablo Peña died in 2018. Jiménez assisted his predecessor from the beginning of this project, but his association with Peña stretched further back.
“I’ll be forever grateful to Pedro Pablo,” said the Bogotá, Colombia, native. “When I first came to this country in 1989, he not only offered me a scholarship to study at his then-called Creation Ballet but even a place to stay in the studio. I soon saw he could use help with work around the office and I reciprocated by doing that.”
Their partnership blossomed as the festival took shape and grew, with Peña forever the tenacious custodian of big ballet dreams and Jiménez his steadfast right-hand man keen on practicalities.
“Luckily, I’d learned administrative assistance at school in Bogotá, and it came in handy with payrolls and budgets,” said Jiménez, who’d planned to study business administration until ballet won out. To the advantage of the festival, he’s the kind of artistic director whose knack for numbers goes beyond the counts in a dance phrase.
Although he provides continuity to Peña’s achievements, Jiménez has also ushered the festival into newer territory.
(Simon Soong)
Marize Fumero and Arionel Vargas of the Milwaukee Ballet.
“We’ve evolved for the better throughout our history,” he judges, considering festival offerings from the initial single weekend to added activities now spread throughout three weeks, the last two dividing contemporary and classical programs.
The contemporary bill is about to reveal fresh faces from England’s Rambert School Ballet and France’s Arles Youth Ballet, a focus on the next generation that has become a priority for Jiménez.
“I’ve added a summer intensive course for ballet students, which lets them not only attend festival shows, but in some cases, also perform in them,” he said.
This educational initiative, he underscores, also boosts festival revenues, which has suffered this year from a gubernatorial veto of all state arts funds, much like virtually all other cultural organizations in Florida.
(Baltasar Santiago)
Eriberto Jimenez, International Ballet Festival of Miami director.
To encourage dancers who are likely to return to the festival one day as representatives of notable companies, Jiménez has also instituted a young medalists show, a Dance Marathon, and a free Rising Stars on the Streets event at Lincoln Road’s Euclid Circle in Miami Beach, introducing these emerging talents to our community as prologue to the upcoming main events.
“I’ve always wanted to see more of that contact,” says Jiménez. “The promise of these young people’s success, after all, is inseparable from the future of the festival.”
If You Go
The XXIX International Ballet Festival of Miami schedule is as follows: Contemporary I, Friday and Saturday, Aug. 2 and 3, 8 p.m. at Miami-Dade College, North Campus, Lehman Theater, 11380 NW 27th St., Miami. Contemporary II, Friday and Saturday, Aug. 2 and 3, 8 p.m. at the Dennis C. Moss Cultural Arts Center, 10950 SW 211 St., Cutler Bay. Contemporary III, Sunday, Aug. 4, 5 p.m. at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 SW 5th Ave., Fort Lauderdale. Classical galas are Saturday, Aug. 10, 8 p.m. and Sunday, Aug. 11, 5 p.m. at the Fillmore, 1700 Washington Ave., Miami Beach. Prices vary from $30 - $119.25 depending on time and location. For ticketing and more information, call 786.747.1877 or visit www.internationalballetfestival.org
ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more.