Close at hand are his myriad day-to-day administrative duties. More generally, he never loses sight of the event’s mission to unite dance across borders. And, tending to his art’s past glories, he aims to invest in its productive future.

Complemented by other activities, the festival’s contemporary and classical performances will take place from Friday, Aug. 2, through Sunday, Aug. 11, at different South Florida locations including Fort Lauderdale’s Broward Center for the Performing Arts. The events close with the Gala of the Stars at The Fillmore Miami Beach, where the yearly dance culture and criticism recognition will be given to Perfecto Uriel, from Spain’s Casa de la Danza and Danza en Escena magazine.

This year, there are eight participating companies from countries ranging from Uruguay and Brazil to Serbia and Romania. Compañía Nacional de Danza de México, on the roster since the festival’s inception, is also scheduled to return. Jiménez coordinates festival logistics including visa approvals, which he confides can be a concern for participants from abroad.

“Visa denials or last-minute injuries may throw off the flow of a program,” says Jiménez. In such cases, he must race to make rearrangements and substitutions. But, he emphasizes, “you just can’t let that sour the artistic experience. It’s part of who I am to find a solution whenever a problem pops up.”

Joining the Latin Americans and Europeans, this edition will bring members of troupes from Milwaukee (a longtime and frequent presence), Pittsburgh and Kansas City. Performances by Jiménez’s Cuban Classical Ballet of Miami, plus Dimensions Dance Theatre of Miami and Arts Ballet Theatre of Florida, will round out the offerings from locals, for a total of 18 troupes for the main programs.

Representing Milwaukee Ballet in the classical lineup, Cuban-born-and-trained ballerina Marize Fumero takes personal and professional pleasure in her decade of appearances here.

“In these, I can see myself maturing both as an artist and a woman,” she says.

Upon her 2014 arrival in Miami, the festival opened to her the doors of its headquarters at the historic Warner House by the Miami River, easing Fumero’s way into a new life in the American dance arena. From then on, she’s taken to stages far and wide, but Miami still holds a special place in her heart. Applause here seems different — closer to the sounds of family, she feels — which makes her especially happy to come back as a fully confident artist, ready to regale audiences with a passionate scene from Kenneth MacMillan’s “Manon,” its music surging from Jules Massenet’s Romantic-era score.

While championing the bravura of the classical pas de deux, Jiménez has also secured a place for the shadows and shimmer of today’s ballet. An Imperial-to-Soviet Russian style informs his company’s offers: a duet from “Raymonda” — with its 19th-century Marius Petipa choreography to an Alexander Glazunov score variously staged throughout history — and “Diana and Acteon,” to the delight of diehard balletomanes, its grim myth transformed by literal leaps and bounds into a love fest between goddess and hunter.

But then Dimensions brings two sensitively paced pairings, their tenderness and tensions closer to the pulse of our own emotions. Ryan Jolicoeur-Nye’s “On the Sky” and Yanis Eric Pikieris’s “If” will put on view more of choreographers’ works whose premieres were warmly received at this year’s company-season finale.

“We love showing the audience a different side of ballet,” says Dimensions artistic co-director Jennifer Kronenberg, underscoring how a relatable lyricism enhances variety at an event they’ve performed in since 2017. “It’s important for us to return because this is home. We’re proud to contribute to a landscape we share with the festival.”

Kronenberg sums up the experience of appearing alongside international artists as inspiring. And that’s the effect Jiménez hoped to reinforce when he took over the festival after founder Pedro Pablo Peña died in 2018.  The current director had assisted his predecessor from the beginning of this project, but his association with Peña stretched further back.

“I’ll be forever grateful to Pedro Pablo,” says the Colombia native. “When I first came to this country in 1989, he not only offered me a scholarship to study at his then-called Creation Ballet but even a place to stay in the studio. I soon saw he could use help with work around the office and reciprocated by doing that.”

Their partnership blossomed as the festival took shape and grew, with Peña forever the tenacious custodian of big ballet dreams and Jiménez his steadfast right-hand man keen on practicalities.

“Luckily, I’d learned administrative assistance at school in Bogotá, and it came in handy with payrolls and budgets,” says Jiménez, who’d planned to study business administration until ballet won out. To the advantage of the festival, he’s the kind of artistic director whose knack for numbers goes beyond the counts in a dance phrase.

Although he’s given continuity to Peña’s achievements, Jiménez has also ushered the festival into newer territory.

“We’ve evolved for the better throughout our history,” he says, considering festival offerings from the initial single weekend to added activities now spread throughout three weeks, the last two dividing contemporary and classical programs.

The contemporary bill is about to reveal fresh faces from England’s Rambert School and France’s Arles Youth Ballet Co. And that focus on the next generation has become a priority for Jiménez.

“I’ve added a summer intensive course for ballet students, which lets them not only attend festival shows but, in some cases, also perform in them,” says the director. This educational initiative, he underscores, is also an aid to festival finances, which — as is the case with almost every cultural organization in Florida — have suffered from a gubernatorial veto of all state arts funds for the next fiscal year.

To encourage dancers who might someday return to the festival as representatives of notable companies, Jiménez has also instituted a young medalists show, a dance marathon, and Rising Stars on the Streets (which took place free of charge at Lincoln Road’s Euclid Circle) — introducing these emerging talents to our community as prologue to the upcoming main events.

“I’ve always wanted to see more of that contact,” says Jiménez. “The promise of these young people’s success, after all, is inseparable from the future of the festival.”

IF YOU GO

WHAT:  XXIX International Ballet Festival of Miami

WHEN/WHERE: 

• Contemporary I — 8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 2, at Miami-Dade College, North Campus, Lehman Theater, 11380 NW 27th Ave., Miami
• Contemporary II — 8 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 3, at Dennis C. Moss Cultural Arts Center, 10950 SW 211th St., Miami
• Contemporary III — 5 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 4, at Broward Center of the Performing Arts, Amaturo Theater, 201 SW Fifth Ave., Fort Lauderdale
• Classical Galas — 8 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 10, and 5 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 11, at Fillmore Miami Beach, 1700 Washington Ave.

COST: Starts at $30 for Contemporary performances; starts at $58.50 for the Classical Galas; ticket prices vary based on time and location

INFORMATION: 786-747-1877; internationalballetfestival.org

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more.

In the world premiere of “Pop,” Dance NOW! Miami co-artistic director Diego Salterini whisks us to the 1980s to consider the decade as if we were going over last night’s entry in our diary. His premiere joins restagings of company co-director Hannah Baumgarten’s “Tethered” and New World School of the Arts founding dean of dance Daniel Lewis’ “Open Book.” Performances are set for Friday, May 17, at Fort Lauderdale’s Broward Center for the Performing Arts and Saturday, May 18, at the Aventura Arts and Cultural Center. Both shows start at 8 p.m.

For Salterini, the 1980s were noteworthy, with rhythms that shook the dance floor and events that shook the world. And the tunes of the era beckoned to him like a ticket to return there.

“I’d been toying with the idea of using popular music for my contemporary dance pieces,” Salterini says. “I usually lean towards what’s more obscure or emotionally heavy. But let’s be real, my memories of growing up are full of Madonna, Tears for Fears, Prince.”

Those songsters drove a beat into Salterini that still reverberates in his body and soul. As a teenager in Rome and then a young professional dancer, the Italian native says American pop music was always part of the entertainment.

“And MTV was big,” he says. “So in my piece, there are all sorts of stylized video projections.”

For these, designer Bruce F. Brown came up with a rising backdrop of vividly hued bubbles, eliciting all things wishful and giddy. The costumes by Haydee and Maria Morales have swaths of Italian-ice colors, refreshing for steamy scenes.

Knowing the personal must find communal tenor through art, Salterini went into action.

“I reached out to my Gen X buddies and asked for their top songs,” he says. “I then made a Venn diagram of our choices — and I can’t lie, we had to cut out a lot of options or our show would’ve been 10 hours long.”

He turned to trusted collaborator Davidson Jaconello for the right period playlist.

“We went back and forth reimagining these songs, until we landed on a soundtrack that takes you on a journey,” he says. “People my age will love this trip down memory lane, and younger generations, I hope, will come along for the ride.”

Madonna, Grace Jones and Billy Idol made the cut to keep Salterini’s purpose on a roll.

“Even if meant for head-bopping, ‘Pop’ still talks about teenage angst, first love, identity, the AIDS crisis, and youth power,” he says. “All the while we hear The Terminator’s ‘I’ll be back!’ and (Ronald) Reagan’s ‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!’”

Salterini emphasizes his personal style provides overall cohesion, being “contemporary with modern and ballet vocabulary. Although Davidson’s soundtrack gives a perfect structure for narrative, not all the choreography is directly related to the meaning of each song.”

In the Billy Idol section, for instance, “Eyes Without a Face” does not reference AIDS. But the choreographer says, “It gave me the opportunity to touch on the subject, while offering a strong athletic section.”

A mirror of the times, this reflects the surge and bounce of the Idol video, representing a larger media phenomenon that Salterini experienced while working in Italy. Yet this also lets him raise a memorial to those who have fallen from AIDS.

“Pop” lasts nearly 40 minutes and features five women and four men. For 22-year-old dancer Jean Da Silva, who joined Dance NOW! this season, “Pop” leads to family and fantasy.

“When I shared these songs and videos with my dad, he teared up,” he says of their bonding over a past liveliness that spread to their native Uruguay.

“But I’m also an old soul,” admits the dancer, who — while training at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York — preferred to groove in clubs with a throwback jam, a prelude to his current evocation of a distant era.

By honoring all the figures in his art brought down by AIDS, he says, “I feel as if I’m letting them dance once more.” And that brings elation, especially “when the whole cast is together, and we shoot for the sky.”

Co-director Baumgarten comments, “Diego is holding down the show’s second half by taking people through laughs and sorrow and sex.”

This makes for a satisfying program, she says, “creating a rhythm for the viewer. Danny Lewis’ piece is more classical-modern (Mahler, Wagner, and Rossini in the mix). And I’m bringing back contemporary ballet — one of my favorite idioms — in ‘Tethered,’ where audiences can recognize the structure and technical base.”

This balancing act springs straight from the two directors’ credo.

“As long as we have been blending our voices, Diego and I still want to have the capacity to develop our ideas individually from inception to fruition,” she says. “The more we invest in that, the more we bring to the table.”

“Tethered” offers human fundamentals to an original Davidson Jaconello-Felix Rosch composition. Though not historically referential, autobiography colors the piece.

“I grew up playing tetherball,” says Baumgarten. “The effect of a ball tied to a pole can be rather maddening. It escapes control, leading to frustration and sometimes your head being slapped. But I tried to allow this to manifest in a constructive way.

“One person connects to another for fun, a tug-of-war. Then two others exchange energies, breath. The couples connect for more ways to find one’s own identity and the necessity — the power — of the group. Will they ultimately decide to sever the cord or dive into a world where connection is home?”

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Dance NOW! Miami’s Program III featuring the world premiere of “Pop”

WHEN/WHERE:

• 8 p.m. Friday, May 17, at Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Amaturo Theater, 201 SW Fifth Ave., Fort Lauderdale
• 8 p.m. Saturday, May 18, at Aventura Arts and Cultural Center, 3385 NE 188th St.

COST:

• $50 for Fort Lauderdale
• $45 for for Aventura
• For both shows, students pay $20 when presenting a valid ID; this offer is available at Box Office only.

INFORMATION: 305-975-8489; dancenowmiami.org/events/pop

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music, and more. 

Enchantment and calamity will indeed color the storyline when Miami City Ballet (MCB) reveals this panorama from the perspective of choreographer Alexei Ratmansky. His tending to the work’s 19th-century roots first bore heirloom fruit in 2016 with the Zurich Ballet before our local company took charge of the North American premiere in 2022. Now the production that opened in Miami at the Arsht Center last week travels to Fort Lauderdale’s Broward Center and West Palm Beach’s Kravis Center.

“Swan Lake” unfolds fantastic elements with a palpitating heart, Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s score hastening the action and heightening emotion. Royal protocol demands Prince Siegfried choose a mate, but first he goes bird hunting with his pals in the forest. As he aims, Cupid’s arrow pierces him. A mysterious maiden has emerged lakeside, and he’s smitten. Odette embodies feminine charms, and yet — what’s that ethereal quality about her? Every time she flutters by, she seems poised to take wing. And a bevy of similar beauties flock around her with companionable buoyancy.

Odette is a shape-shifter, from woman to swan, under sorcerer Rothbart’s spell, only to be broken when a swain pledges true love to her — Siegfried to the rescue. Still, man is weak and sorcery strong when Odile, Rothbart’s secret agent and Odette doppelgänger, seduces the prince at a ball. Doom will cloud the lake but not before we see some of the most gorgeous dancing in ballet ever and — very telling in this version — lots of poignant pantomime, lovingly restored.

To power this, MCB dancers have put in long studio hours for months. In-house rehearsal directors, eagle-eyed guardians of steps and overall style, kept things on track until Ratmansky, with wife Tatiana in assistance, took over. Under their tutelage, Dawn Atkins, a newcomer to “Swan Lake,” has approached her dual roles of Odette/Odile attuned to every physical detail and the insights of history.

“‘Swan Lake’ has so many moving parts,” says Atkins. “It’s quite challenging. All those layers call for a different kind of preparation.”

Keen on polishing technique and the demands of acting — the highs and lows of a tragic heroine on the path she must brave — she adds, “What’s so striking about Ratmansky’s version is how it tugs at the heartstrings.”

The ballet’s background has been discussed in the studio, but Atkins says, “I’ve taken it upon myself to do a lot of reading and watching a lot of videos to get to my own interpretation.” It’s let her offer more to the choreographer to best fulfill his vision.

Indeed, Ratmansky’s vision — what he salvaged from archives and how he applied his own magisterial touches — created a buzz upon the premiere of his “Swan Lake” here two years ago.

The original 1877 Moscow production, despite Tchaikovsky’s big score, failed to score big. But in 1895, the composer already dead, a revival took place at St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre, with the music and scenario tweaked and new choreography by the great Marius Petipa and his assistant, Lev Ivanov (for the epochal lakeside action). That sent this much-traveled ballet off on a glorious trajectory, though additions and adaptations have been imposed along the way.

Having delved deep into Stepanov notation, a system created in Imperial Russia to record choreography, and other archival materials, Ratmansky wanted to home in closer to the Petipa/Ivanov intent for his “Swan Lake.” He revived discarded technical elements — differently angled legs here, more demi-pointe footwork there — and hairstyles and costumes that hark back to the original era. Tender flesh reigns here over feathers, and the vintage glow brings revelations.

Working with Ratmansky to inhabit this setting can be transformative. As Atkins attests, “He wants me to emphasize establishing positions and use transitions simply as that. He’s trying to create more inflections in my dancing. For dramatic interpretation, he stresses how important it is to keep the pantomime interesting, saying I need to become each word — for example, ‘love’ or ‘evil.’ This allows the storytelling to come alive and not just be gestures.”

While Atkins fits the profile of first-time Swan Queens who, without fossilized notions, wholeheartedly take to Ratmansky’s construct, Stanislav Olshanskyi, her Prince Siegfried, brings a long personal acquaintance with this classic. This will be his seventh version of “Swan Lake” and he admits, “Some of the variations are still very difficult to do. So you need to be really smart how you rehearse.”

Olshanskyi is putting the man before the fairy-tale prince. “He’s just a human being exploring life and looking for something as we all are, for happiness and basically himself. I always say I’m not trying to act. I’m living in this world.”

Foremost for him is the introductory love scene with Odette — historically aligned here, unlike other versions, since Siegfried’s friend Benno is also in attendance — and his seduction by Odile, her typical plumage shed for a party-princess demeanor.

Olshanskyi and Atkins have developed a special rapport dancing together this season. “That helps us very much because we have trust and a possibility to learn from each other’s way of being on stage, to the point where we can predict what the other is going to do,” he says.

Brooks Landegger, another Siegfried, like Atkins new to his role (the gifted Taylor Naturkas debuts with him as Odette/Odile), finds inspiration in his colleagues.

“I had the opportunity to watch Dawn and Stas rehearse, and it was very impactful,” he says, and the addition of Benno to the scene (the steadfast Damian Zamorano) made it “extraordinarily touching.”

Playing Siegfried is quite a quest for Landegger. But he draws from dramatic know-how, having toured in the Broadway musical “Billy Elliot” and earned a standout performance recognition in 2022 from national magazine Pointe for his lead in MCB’s “Romeo and Juliet.” He links his right-on course to guidance from his earlier teachers and MCB’s artistic team.

“There have been such generous voices around me every day,” he says.

Among cast members with established “Swan Lake” credentials, Samantha Hope Galler — alongside Renan Cerdeiro in their second go-round at MCB — is focusing on fortifying the narrative through pacing, real-life experiences, and pantomime as natural as conversation. This balances Odette’s fragility with her swan-clan protectiveness and adds sparkle to Odile’s sneakiness (acting out mischief, Galler concedes, is great fun).

Happy to report her husband’s the love of her life, Galler also confesses she’s no stranger to heartbreak — a source of her authenticity in this ballet. Now the schoolgirl who once swooned over “Swan Lake” music at bedtime is about to realize her best ballerina dream at show time.

“My goal is to bring real emotional connection at a deep level,” she says. “That’s what this is all about. I hope audiences at the end will have to take out their tissues.”

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Miami City Ballet’s “Swan Lake”

WHEN: Saturday-Sunday, May 11-12

WHERE: Kravis Center for the Performing Arts, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach

COST: $40-$329

INFORMATION: 305-929-7010; miamicityballet.org

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more.

It premiered in St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theater in 1892, created by fabulist E.T.A. Hoffman, original choreographer Lev Ivanov and composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Credit much of the seasonal dance craze on these shores to San Francisco Ballet, which in 1944 mounted the first full-length Nutcracker in the United States.

Now PBS brings the sparkle of this company’s most recent adaptation, choreographed by artistic director Helgi Tomasson and filmed last year at the War Memorial Opera House, as part of Great Performances’ Dance in America. As hostess, Dancing with the Stars winner Kristi Yamaguchi gives this a pop spin, but the allure remains vintage as Act One’s party scene is set, with delightful period details, in the City by the Bay during the 1915 World’s Fair. Note that unlike the choreo-centric Balanchine staging we’re used to via Miami City Ballet, this take on the classic (more similar to Ballet Florida’s) strengthens the story line; there’s a resourcefully involved Uncle Drosselmeyer (David Smith), a romantically mature Clara (Maria Kochetkova, lovely and pliant dancing the grand pas with David Karapetyan, who is dashing and full of spring), and a warmer human touch in the realm of the Sugar Plum Fairy. That sweet thing, by the way, is danced by Vanessa Zahorian as if her turns and balances were the only treats your appetite will need.

Guillermo Perez

INFORMATIONAL BOX:

On TV

Program: Great Performances: Dance In America: San Francisco Ballet’s Nutcracker

Airs: 8 p.m. on WBPT-Ch. 2

The touring program glories in qualities that have made American master Taylor stand out for more than a half-century. The National Medal of Arts winner’s post-9-11 Promethean Fire, with complex formations in flux, responds to crisis and struggle with a statement of hope: After dancers pile up as if on a pyre, two flicker away to carry on with luminous vigor. There are daring and nobility at almost every step as Bach provides deep sonorities. In the more mysterious Byzantium, set to compositions by VarM-hse, individual plight is set within mass movement, with ritualized sophistication pitted against primal brutishness.

Taylor, though, is just as expert at whipping up puff pastries of the most exquisite kind. The lilting Offenbach Overtures offers amusement in costume drama, with encounters among socialites fostering humor and mischief. How about a wobbling waltz or a duel in which 40 paces leads to a dalliance? High-end soap opera has never been so bubbly – or so operatic.

Guillermo Perez

INFORMATIONAL BOX:

If you go

The Paul Taylor Dance Company performs today at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Arsht Center, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami. $35-$120; 305-949-6722 or arshtcenter.org