Before the Miami City Ballet dancers performed for the first time without founder Edward Villella last night, new artistic director Lourdes Lopez took the stage to give thanks. Declaring that she was "back home," Lopez reminisced about growing in up a very different Miami -- one without MOCA, or the Colony Theatre, New World Symphony or the Arsht Center.
Les Patineurs (The Skating Party) took the stage first, featuring dancers bobbing their heads as they mimicked ice skating across a stage decorated with white arches and lifelike-looking tree branch backdrops, elegantly lit with paper lanterns. In the hands of MCB, Sir Frederick Ashton's choreography seemed silly but self-aware; the dancers, costumed in heavy winter vest rimmed with fur, seemed almost to be laughing at themselves as they bobbed about. A few awkward laughs even broke out across the audience.