DNE! launches its 11th season on February 26th and 27th, 2011 at the Colony Theater on Miami Beach with a remix of Luigi Pirandello‘s modern theater classic Six Characters in Search of an Author and the South Florida premiere of works by internationally renowned West Coast choreographer Tandy Beal. Beal is known for her style of braiding together dance, circus, and theater.

DNE!’s co-artistic directors Hannah Baumgarten and Diego Salterini say their version of Six Characters in Search of an Author will have a twist. “Audiences will have to see for themselves how we have transformed this play,” says Baumgarten. “What attracted me to this play,” says Salterini, “is [Pirandello’s] premise that, in dance (as well as theater), characters exist. They can only be who they are and nothing else. In contrast, the performers are not as real as the characters. Performers play many parts – they can play 1,000 characters– or one – or no-one.” Baumgarten and Salterini have added their own twist to the classic play: do we experience it today as a reality show?

The mastery of theatrical dance also underlies the attraction of DNE to the work of Tandy Beal. Beal’s work in the premiere includes dances from a larger work “Time Falling Bodies Take to Light” (1987) as well as at least two of Tandy Beal’s iconic solo works: the adagio “Heisenberg’s Principle,” (1979); with music by long-time partner Jon Scoville and, “Mysterious Barricades (or the plot without thickener) music by Couperin (1981).

WHEN & WHERE: Colony Theater, 1040 Lincoln Rd, Miami Beach, FL 33139, February 26, 2011 8 pm; February 27 at 3 pm. TICKETS: $35/$30/$15/$10. Colony Box Office: 305-674-1040 x1 or Ticketmaster: 800-745-3000 Tickets also available online at dancenowmiami.org via paypal or 305-975-8489