As this new year begins to take shape I wanted to take a moment to reflect on 2013. It was a year of great growth filled with a lot of firsts and with many challenges. I wanted to share some of my experiences this year with you and to thank you for your continued support and love.
2013 begun with the NYC premiere of Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre at Focus Dance at the Joyce Theater. The performance was met with a lot of enthusiasm and was hailed by broadwayworld.com as “A company that is so innovative, searing and disturbing that it bears repeated viewings.”
With Spring came the NYC premiere of Dining Alone at the Baryshnicov Arts Center and an incredible and surprising sold out run. I was overwhelmed with the amount of enthusiasm surrounding RHDT'S first solo show in NYC and the outpour of support from my extended dance family in NYC. Rachel Rizzuto of Backtrack.comcomments that she ..."left the theater rejuvenated about the state of dance in performance..." and Deborah Jowitt called the work "...earthy, poetic and beyond dada imaginative."
In June and July I was in residency at the American Dance Festival creating a new work on the ADF dancers entitled Make Believe. I was moved by my experience with the dancers and planted the seeds for a work I am excited to start working on with my company in the near future.
With Charlene, Princess of Monaco, receiving the 2013 Princess Grace Choreographic Fellowship.
Straight from ADF I departed onto NYC to set a work entitled Show.Girl on Ballet Hispanico. This is a work I have been excited to create for many years and Ballet Hispanico was the perfect fit. This process took me to another level as a choreographer. I knew it was time to challenge myself in many ways creatively and the result I think is a work more sophisticated and polished than my most recent work. I hope to see you at the world premiere of this work at The Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts June 6-7. Click here for more info.
My relationship with Ballet Hispanico eventually led to a prestigious Choreographic Fellowship Award from the Princess Grace foundation in October. Click here for a behind the scenes look at the development of Show.Girl as part of Ballet Hispanico's Instituto Coreorafico.
Back in Miami we prepared for the second annual Spike Award auditions. Created in 2012 by my colleague Matthew Ferrara and myself,The Spike Award is a fund supported by Northwestern Mutual that awards tuition, travel, per diem and housing for one New World School of the Arts student of great financial need to attend the American Dance Festival each summer. We were pleased with the turnout for this year’s audition and with this year’s scholarship recipient Amanda Edwards.
Also in October RHDT performed for the CircX Anniversary at the Fillmore Theater in Miami Beach with an excerpt of Pity Party. It was an incredible celebration of Miami’s unique and thriving cabaret scene and we were so honored to be a part of the fun.
In November I headed to Ohio (cold weather was clearly a theme this year!) to set a new work entitled Housebroken on Moving Ground Dance Theater of Cleveland. I was also able to do a lot of outreach in the Ohio community with masterclasses and workshops at Cleveland State University and University of Ohio in Akron. Click here to hear an interview with Dee Perry of Ohio's Idea Stream about the motivation for Housebroken.
With all the new experiences 2013 brought, I hope 2014 brings many more opportunities for growth and happiness for myself as well as for you. I also hope that this new year will bring more chances for us to enjoy each others company. Thank you all for your incredible support now and always.
With Love,
Rosie