Last Dance

Dancers work on their craft around the clock, 24-7. Whether it's rehearsing for concerts or practicing technique, their minds and bodies are continuously striving for perfection. Be it ballet or hip-hop, movement to dancers is like breathing. They can't live without it. It would be difficult to walk away from a lifetime of pliés, pirouettes, and joint-crushing leaps.

Johnson retires with grace

Details

Saturday, April 3, at 8:00 p.m.Tickets cost $10 and $15. Call 305-560-1150.

FIU's VH-100 Black Box Theater, 11200 SW 8th St.

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More About

• Esaias Johnson
• Martin Luther King Jr.
• Jimi Hendrix
• Dance
• Hip-Hop and Rap

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But leaving the dance world was something dancer and choreographer Esaias Johnson, founder of Dance Esaias Company, had to face when the effects of arthritis began morphing her joints and making it increasingly difficult for her to move. Because the method she developed, Pomofunk -- a hybrid of ballet and modern dance techniques crossbred with hip-hop -- relies on her demonstrating certain moves, Johnson found it hard to teach, much less choreograph.

"I found I just can't do it anymore," Johnson says. "I had to stop teaching three months ago. After the last class I couldn't walk for seven days."

Still Johnson had a vision to pursue. She couldn't just leave her work dangling without an end. So she began rehearsing the last performance for her company. The result is Bliss: Final Angel Project, an ensemble work that incorporates all the elements of the company's seven years, ties up the loose ends in one culminating performance.

Though she confesses to it being an emotional experience, Johnson is determined that the piece won't be a downer.

"This is huge for me," she says. "But the main thing is to do it with grace and not be a whiner."

In Bliss, Johnson employs her muses, namely angels, to form a loose narrative that speaks of change and transcendence. Rather than fairy-tale angels, hers are more streetwise, roughneck entities who will move to the sounds of Jimi Hendrix and Caetano Veloso, among others, with the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. mixed in.

"I think that at bottom line, [Bliss] says that endings are okay and can be done gracefully," Johnson says. "Change is always change. We make it good."