Today is a banner day for Miami dance: Rosie Herrera presents a full evening of work at the American Dance Festival in Durham, North Carolina — a feat that puts her in the company of other giants of dance like Martha Clarke, Paul Taylor, and Shen Wei. My heart is broken because I just spent three weeks at ADF, and had to come home right before Herrera’s debut. As my consolation prize, I was able to catch Herrera’s group’s first Durham rehearsal of “Various Stages of Drowning: A Cabaret,” the piece that caught ADF director Charles Reinhart’s eye at the 2009 Here & Now Festival at the Arsht Center and of her new piece “Pity Party” that was shown as an early work in progress at the 2010 Here & Now. Here’s a video clip of Herrera demonstrating a section for one the dancers, accompanied by Octavio Campos, Liony Garcia, and Luis Cuevas.

In a year when ADF is exploring the theme, “What Is Dance Theater,” Herrera responded with a Miami twist on Pina Bausch‘s “tanztheater” cut with cabaret. Deep emotions are always ready to shift from elation to despair as dancers repeatedly break into tears or fly into the rage in the midst of a smiling spectacle. For the next three nights, it’s Herrera’s party, and her dancers will be crying as much as she wants them too. Missing it all here in Miami, I’ll be crying too.