Dance NOW! Miami and Limón Dance Company together in historic collaboration
The Limón Dance Company celebrates its 75th season and returns to live performances in a historic team-up with Dance NOW! Miami.
Born in México, José Limón was the only major Hispanic choreographer to co-found and lead an American dance company during the formative years of Modern Dance. Limón died in 1972 but his works thrive 50 years after his death.
Dante Puleio is a former Limón dancer and has been the company’s artistic director since 2020. He identifies Limón’s continued influence as a key to understanding 20th-century dance.
“There are legacy companies in New York City like Martha Graham and Paul Taylor whose founders died and yet their works continue to live,” says Puleio. “We were the first Modern Dance company to survive the death of its founder.”
Puleio continues: “People like Danny proved that a dance company founded by a charismatic founder could survive.” He’s referring to former Limón dancer and founding dean of dance at New World School of the Arts Daniel Lewis who plays a key role in the upcoming team-up between the two companies.
In three South Florida performances on Thursday, May 12, Friday, May 13, and Saturday, May 14, Limón Dance Company will perform, “Waldstein Sonata,” a work for eight dancers based on Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 21 in C Major. Jeffrey Hodgson, provost at New
World School of the Arts, will play the live piano accompaniment.
Although other dance companies have performed “Waldstein,” the Limón Company premiered the work for the first time on April 26 at its Joyce Theater season opener.
Limón originally intended to create dances to all of Beethoven’s piano sonatas but his death from cancer left the work unfinished. Three years later, Lewis took on the task of completing the work.
Lewis’ dance career is closely connected with that of the Mexican choreographer. He was already dancing with Limón Dance when he graduated from The Julliard School in 1967. Within a year, he began teaching dance at Julliard, taking over Limón’s introductory dance classes and serving as the Limón Company’s Artistic Director until 1975.
“It was Martha Hill, and the President of Juilliard, Peter Mennin, who commissioned me to
complete “Waldstein Sonata” at Juilliard in 1975,” explains Lewis by phone. “Although the work has been performed all around the world, this
is the first time the Limón Company has performed it,” he adds.
After the follow-up performances with Dance NOW! Miami in May,
Lewis intends to donate the performance rights of the work to the Limón Company.