Jennifer Kronenberg is the co-founding artistic director of Dimensions Dance Theatre based out of Miami. Kronenberg and her husband Carlos Guerra founded the company in 2016, and since the launch, the company has found success in the South Florida ballet scene. Kronenberg explained her excitement that Dimensions Dance is scheduled to perform at the NSU Rose and Alfred Miniaci Performing Arts Center on Nov. 12.
Can you tell us a little bit about Dimensions Dance?
“We started Dimensions Dance Theatre last year. We had our inaugural performance Nov. 20. We really just sort of took off since then. My husband and I were longtime principal dancers with Miami City Ballet, and upon leaving the company in the spring, we weren’t quite sure what our next steps were going to be professionally. We knew that we wanted to stay in Miami and continue contributing to the arts community here. It just seemed like the natural transition to create something of our own, and we were going back and forth between a school or a company, and we knew eventually that we wanted to work with professionals, so we thought ‘no time like the present, let’s just try and see what happens.
“So, we started the company out not really as a company but more as a group who was planning on working on a project by project basis. That inaugural performance was our first project. We didn’t know what would come from that. We had four weeks of work and that’s all we contracted the dancers for, and it was like ‘to be continued, maybe.’ We ended up having a lot of success with that first performance and everything took off from there.
“Our mission is to really engage the community and delve into the community and be representative of it. I would say 99 percent of our dancers are local to the South Florida area. We try to present choreography that is representative of the different cultures found in the community. They’re definitely ballets, but for instance, in the first program, we had a work called “Juanita y Alicia” that was ballet but it was danced to Cuban boleros. We had a salsa band on stage playing with us… Now, on this upcoming program here in Miami we will have a tango quartet on stage with us. There’s always something that we try and engage with other than the dance itself.”
Can you tell us a little bit about “The Pointe of Pas de Deux: A Dance Dialogue”?
For the Minanci program up in Broward, we were thinking about how it is our first performance in this theatre. The theatre is on a university campus, so wouldn’t it be nice to engage that community by presenting a sort of educational program, not just general run of the mill performance, but the performance with an educational side? We have a narrator who is going to be speaking and explaining a bit about what the audience is going to see and the stylistic differences between the works that are being danced with a little history and background so that we have that educational component to it. We thought that would be really nice to bring to that university environment.
What can students attending the show expect? What will the performance be like?
“A full range of styles. So, all the pieces that we are going to be dancing are ballet, but it’s ranging from traditional classical all the way to the most contemporary ballet pieces that you see now in the 21st century. We’re starting by showing how partnering work and Pas de Deux itself has evolved over the years. I think it’s a really interesting mix of different works. I think they’ll be really pleasantly surprised at how far ballet has come. I think they’re going to see how stereotypes are really being broken. It’s going to be a nice show, I’m excited for it.”
What do you hope those attending the show gain from the experience?
“I hope that they gain a little bit of a different perspective on ballet itself. Somehow there’s always this old-fashioned stereotype that goes along with the word ‘ballet.’ People always think of the white tutus and swans, and this elitist sort of environment, so we’re hoping to break down that barrier a little bit and show them that there’s so much more to the world of ballet.”
The performance of “The Pointe of Pas de Deux: A Dance Dialogue” will take place on Sunday, Nov. 12, at 2 p.m. in the Rose and Alfred Miniaci Performing Arts Center. A question and answer session will take place directly after the performance. For more information about Dimensions Dance and for ticket pricing, visit dimensionsdancemia.com or nova.edu/miniaci/index.html. To receive the NSU student discount, simply enter the promo code “NSU” at checkout.
