A Pas de Deux, of sorts
Ballet Gamonet Maximum Dance’s Debut Season opens October. 7

By Natalia Maldonado

Previously two separate companies, Maximum Dance and Ballet Gamonet merged in February when Maximum, pressed with financial difficulties, presented Jimmy Gamonet de los Heros with the idea of bringing the two companies together. At the time, Gamonet, who was ballet master and resident choreographer at Miami City Ballet for 14 years, was getting ready to start his own company. Merging with Maximum not only provided both companies with financial benefits and grant eligibility, but it also brought together two artistic styles, with the possibility of creating something new.

All nine dancers from Maximum were offered contracts to stay with the new company, yet not all stayed.

	PHOTO BY JANINE HARRIS Dancers Hiroko Sakakibara and Paul Thrussell perform in Nous Sommes, choreographedy by Jimmy Gamonet De Los Heros

“It was time for them to be leaving,” dancer Paul Thrusell says. “A lot of them already had many years in a company and they were looking for new things.”

In addition to six dancers from Maximum, twelve new dancers joined Gamonet from all parts of the globe, including Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia, the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, Cuba and the United States.

The company was set to start with Gamonet as artistic director in chief and Yanis Pikieris and David Palmer of Maximum Dance as artistic directors.
“Yanis and David have decided to do other things,” Gamonet says, “and Iliana has decided to move in as ballet mistress. There is the human element that you cannot decide, that has to do with the artistic, with different styles. Both contemporary ballet and neoclassicism come from the same background, and there was the opportunity to find out what became of them merging.”

For now, there is some pushing and shoving, but only in the choreography of “Estancia,” the fourth piece in Program I, that tells the story of a young city dweller whose father sends him to the country to become a stronger man.

“When he gets there everyone’s kind of like, ‘Who is this guy?’” Isanusi Garcia-Rodriguez, who plays the role, explains. “He doesn’t want to be there, doesn’t want to work. But he falls in love and decides to stay, to live a country life for love.”

Gamonet’s choreography shifts from menacing to tender as the music and the plot move along. Although the romance in the story is between the two central characters, there are times when all the dancers become one, linked by their limbs and pulling each other back and forth with a fluid force that is delicate and strong, energetic and serene, like the love in the narrative itself.

The piece, which will make its Florida premiere, has Lopez looking everywhere at once, catching the most subtle and intricate details and demonstrating movements with the same natural grace that audiences came to know during her 17 years at Miami City Ballet.
“Jimmy is creating new things, putting things that some of the dancers have never done before,” Lopez says. “I want to make the dancers look the best that I can.”
With only 18 dancers currently in the company, Gamonet feels that they’ve developed a sense of chemistry amongst themselves.

“They have a sense that this is something new. They’re proud to be a part of it, and they’re contributing to its organization,” he says.

“It’s kind of a whole new company,” says Stephanie Walz, who’d been with Maximum Dance since ’99, and decided to stay after the merge. “There’s not even a resemblance of Maximum Dance, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

Gamonet explains that he wants to focus on innovation, taking a different route from ballet companies that strive to preserve past styles.

“We are about going a little bit beyond that,” he says. “We’re not about preservation; we’re
about creating new things.”

Ballet Gamonet Maximum Dance has much to look forward to. By Christmas, the company expects to move into a new property located in downtown Miami, with two studios, office space, and dressing rooms, made possible largely by a $300,000 grant from the City of Miami and corporate and private sponsorships.

“The developers want us to be in Miami, not in Miami Beach,” Gamonet says. Although Miami City Ballet is located in Miami Beach, he is quick to add that he does not think that the two companies should feel they are competitors.

Lopez agrees.

“Miamians are going to benefit from having two great companies,” Lopez says. “Miami should be proud.”

Ballet Gamonet Maximum Dance Debut Season

Program I:
October 7 & 8, 2005
Gusman Center for the Performing Arts, downtown Miami;

October 15 & 16, 2005
Bailey Concert Hall, Davie

Program II:
November 12 & 13, 2005
Bailey Concert Hall, Davie and

January 27 & 28, 2006
Gusman Center for the Performing Arts, downtown Miami

Program III:
February 11 & 12, 2006
Bailey Concert Hall, Davie

February 24 & 25, 2006
Gusman Center for the Performing Arts, downtown Miami

Program IV:
May 12 & 13, 2006
Gusman Center for the Performing Arts, downtown Miami

May 20 & 21, 2006
Bailey Concert Hall, Davie

Tickets are $25 to $60
Discounts are offered to seniors, students and groups of 20 or more.

To purchase call 305-259-9775 or, toll-free, 1-866-MAX-DANCE.

The Gusman Center for the Performing Arts is located at 174 E. Flagler Street, Miami, Fl 33131
Bailey Concert Hall is located at 3501 S.W. Davie Road, Davie, FL 33314