Fundarte‘s Miami On Stage closed this past weekend with the strongest evening of the series. The bill was split into two solo performances: José Manuel Domínguez in “Hilo” (Thread) and Elizabeth Doud in “Sipping Fury from a Tea Cup.” Though Domínguez and Doud were the only human performers on stage, they were hardly alone. Each benefited from strong direction (Lucia Aratanha and Carlos Caballero, respectively). And each shared the spotlight with a stunning yet simple set that took on the life of a second — well, several — characters.

In “Hilo,” the thread in the main title is that of the myth of the Minotaur, meant to lead the hero out of the labyrinth after he fells the savage bull. Extending in all directions across the stage and far into the audience, this thread also held up the small table that stood in for the Minotaur and served as both obstacle and support for Domínguez’s existential hero.

In “Fury,” Doud arranged and rearranged eight long boards covered in artificial turf in every imaginable configuration, from a placid patch of lawn covered with plastic flowers awaiting pollination to an bed where the heroine as fruitlessly awaits impregnation. The set was so ingenious and so alive that it seemed to join Doud in dancing a duet.

The most poignant absent presence in “Fury,” of course, was Doud’s longtime collaborator, the recently departed Jennylin Duany. Hearing Duany play a mad bee-loving scientist in a voice over recorded before her passing in January made the piece’s message about our eminent extinction urgently palpable and moving. The dialogue also introduced a brief change of pace to Doud’s tour-de-force choreo poem about the folly of human progress.

“Hilo” brought fresh meaning to a long-established myth, while “Sipping Fury from a Teacup” set about establishing myth anew. Together the two pieces rewarded Fundarte’s conviction that there is enough talent in Miami to sustain a home grown performance series.