News + Events

The Ugly Duckling receives a rave review from Mia Leonin! see the review at www.artburstmiami.com.

Ugly Duckling Erika Johnson, Amy LaRue as a Cat, and Artistic Director Delma Iles, as a Peking Duck, are singled out for outstanding performances! 

The Ugly Duckling – Everyone feels sometimes as though they don’t fit in. This is the case for the Ugly Duckling, who is awkward, the wrong color, the wrong size, and definitely not the model duckling in the family. In spite of these challenges, she perseveres through many adversities, only to find that she is not a duck at all – but a beautiful swan. Hans Christen Andersen’s folk take is just as relevant for kids today as it was 200 years ago! Momentum’s dancers waddle, preen, swim, and finally fly in this tale of finding oneself!

 Momentum premieres Carnival of the Animals with the South Florida Youth Symphony 

On March 13, Momentum joined the young artists of the South Florida Youth Symphony for a collaborative concert that featured the premiere of Momentum's newest children's work, Carnival of the Animals. The senior division of the Youth Symphony played Camille Saint-Saens' famous score while Momentum's dancers prsanced, pawed, glided, marched and squiggled in portratits of the Lion, the Tortoise, the Elephant, the Cuckoo, the Swan (to music made famous by Anna Pavlova), coming together in a grand finale. Spectacular costumes by Marilyn Skow enhanced the dancing and made the performance a big hit! The choreography was a joint creation of Artistic Director Delma Iles and the dancers. 

Momentum enjoyed a very successful collaboration with the South Florida Youth Symphony in a joint production of Peter and the Wolf at Miami-Dade County Auditorium last season. "I hope that we can continue to work with these wonderful young musicians in the future" says Delma Iles. "My fantasy project is to perform Mussorsky's Night on Bald Mountain as a Halloween show for the fans of our children's performances!"

Carnival of the Animals – Momentum’s Dancers bring Camille Saint-Saens' dazzling and clever score to life, creating movement vignettes for each of Saint-Saens animals: the prancing Lion, the lugubrious Tortoise, a pair of whimsical Elephants, a school of fish in an Aquarium, the shy Cuckoo, gliding and graceful (until they get on land) Swans, and a Grand Finale. Each segment features fabulous costumes by Marilyn Skow, unique dance movement, and lots of fun!

ABOUT WATER STUDY

Water Study was created by Doris Humphrey in 1928 and is considered to be a breakthrough work in early modern dance. The work is one of the earliest to take the human form into almost pure abstraction, shaping eight dancers into images of swells, waves, splashes, and tides flowing in and out. A unique feature of the dance is that it is performed without music, although it does have a musical score. The accompaniment is the sound of the dancers’ breath, loud and soft, in rhythmic patterns, that evoke the sound of wind on  water. The movements and positions are uniquely fashioned to carry out the theme, demanding difficult shapes of the spine, exceptional breath control, and delicate sensitivity and timing from the dancers. Water Study is an outstanding example of a choreographer creating and shaping movement to carry out a specific image, rather than the typical arrangement of existing steps that was (and often still is) prevalent in choreography up to this time.

“When I learned Water Study, I could not rely on anything I already knew” observed Amber Wortham, who has danced the work with Momentum in the past. “The dancers must focus on the unique demands of this choreography in a very different way than is customary” explains Momentum Artistic Director Delma Iles. “Each step, position and movement is crafted specifically toward fulfilling the theme. There are no conventional or customary steps. I have taught Water Study to eight different casts over the years and I continue to be fascinated by the powerful use of imagination and invention in the choreography. I learn something new every time we dance it. I believe that is one of the definitions of a classic.”

Water Study will be restaged by Delma Iles based on a 1984 reconstruction by Ina Hahn from the Labanotation Score, by arrangement with the Dance Notation Bureau. 

About Doris Humphrey

Doris Batcheller Humphrey (October 17, 1895 – December 29, 1958) was a dancer and choreographer of the early twentieth century. Humphrey was born in Oak Park, Illinois but grew up in Chicago, Illinois. She was a descendant of pilgrim William Brewster. Along with her contemporaries, Martha Graham and Katherine Dunham, Humphrey was a "2nd generation" modern dance pioneers, who followed their forerunners, Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, to name a few, in exploring the use of breath and developing techniques still taught today. As a result of many of her works being notated, Humphrey continues to be taught, studied and performed to this day.

In Chicago, she both studied and taught dance, opening her own dance school in 1913 at the ade of 19. In 1917, she moved to California and entered the Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts, where she studied, performed, taught classes, and learned choreography. Her creations from this era, "Valse Caprice" ("Scarf Dance"), "Soaring", and "Scherzo Waltz" ("Hoop Dance") are all still performed today. Humphrey toured the Orient for two years, followed by a successful career in American vaudeville theaters.In 1928, she and fellow dancer Charles Weidman separated from the Denishawn School and moved to New York City, to become key figures in the modern dance movement. Her choreography explored the nuances of the human body's responses to gravity, embodied in her principle of fall and recovery. Her choreography from these early years includes "Water Study", "Life of the Bee", "Two Ecstatic Themes" and "The Shakers".The Humphrey-Weidman Company was successful even in the darkness of the Great Depression, touring America and developing new styles and new works based not on old tales, but on current events and concerns. In the mid-1930s, Humphrey created the "New Dance Trilogy", a triptych comprising "With My Red Fires", "New Dance", and the now-lost "Theater Piece".One of her last pieces, "Dawn in New York," featured the strengths she demonstrated throughout her career -- her mastery of the intricacies of large groups, and her emphasis on sculptural shapes.Humphrey was on the original faculties of both The Bennington School of the Dance (1934) and The Juilliard School (1951), both directed by Martha Hill.She was fascinated by the flow of breath and how it affects movement. She developed a sense of the body’s natural rhythms, the breath phrase, and the breath rhythm and explored how fall and recovery occur in response to these rhythms. Through awareness of breath and gravity, she drew attention to principles of suspension - the moment of suspension as the body is airborne and the moment the body falls or sinks to the earth.Humphrey retired from performing in 1945, conceding to the ravages of arthritis. She then took up the position of artistic director for the José Limón Dance Company and continued to successfully choreograph with works such as "Day on Earth," "Night Spell," and "Ruins and Visions.Shortly after her death in 1958, aged 63, Humphrey's book, The Art of Making Dances (ISBN 0-87127-158-3), in which she shared her observations and theories on dance and composition, was posthumously published. In the introduction, she observed that in the 20th century, the demure and airy ballet had changed radically. "Suddenly the dance," she said, "the Sleeping Beauty, so long reclining in her dainty bed, had risen up with a devouring desire."Humphrey was inducted into the National Museum of Dance C.V. Whitney Hall of Fame in 1987.