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First up is NDI鈥檚 Spring Into Motion, which, on Friday, February 21, and Saturday, February 22, features three works by local choreographers that will be performed by students in the Dance Barns program. The evening begins with It鈥檚 Not About Numbers, a new work choreographed by Artistic Director Rodney Rivera that showcases two dancers in NDI鈥檚 adult ballet program.

Margrit Paul, who is 83 and has been dancing since she was four, is joined by Craig Byrd, 70, who studied dance in college and performed professionally. Nikolai Klimenko, 10, and Rosalind Grafe, 9, portray Byrd and Paul as youths.

鈥淭he piece is about how generations communicate to each other, how all of us can go back to the past and reflect about life,鈥� Rivera says. 鈥淚鈥檓 playing with the idea of getting old and getting young, and getting old and getting young again. It鈥檚 also about memories and the way you approach life itself.鈥�

Rivera鈥檚 choreography melds different dance forms to J.S. Bach鈥檚 Well-Tempered Clavier, a mambo by Cuban composer Perez Prado, and music from film composer Michael Nyman.

鈥淚鈥檓 a very eclectic choreographer,鈥� Rivera says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not only contemporary dance, but it鈥檚 also Afro-Caribbean and hip-hop blended with classical ballet.鈥�

Paul 鈥� who teaches chair ballet at 疯客直播 Fe鈥檚 MorningStar Senior Living 鈥� was tickled when Rivera asked her to participate and says learning the piece has been a rewarding challenge. 鈥淚 never thought that I would be doing that at this stage of my life, but it鈥檚 absolutely wonderful,鈥� she says. 鈥淒ance is my passion, and I can鈥檛 see my life without it.鈥�

Byrd has spent time behind the scenes as a stage and production manager, so he鈥檚 not accustomed to being the center of attention.

鈥淎ctually being in it and having to dance at basically a professional level is something new,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a little bit of a different experience for me, and I really appreciate it.鈥�

For 疯客直播 Fe-based choreographer Francisco Gella, NDI represents possibility and joy, and his new work, Passing By, is about both.

鈥淭here鈥檚 so much happening in the world right now that is really depressing to watch, so I wanted to do something fun,鈥� he says.

The seven-minute piece is set to a jazzy instrumental interpretation of 鈥淣ight and Day鈥� by Swing 41. Gella came up with the idea of kids hanging out at a park, meeting other kids, talking and playing, dancing solo and in duets, trios, and as a group.

鈥淭hen I thought to myself, it needs some kind of an architectural element, so it involves two benches that the dancers move around,鈥� he says. 鈥淎t one point, the benches get pulled up and they鈥檙e standing on the side to look like a tree, and then standing on the other side, like riding in a car. There are a lot of different references to things that you would do as a kid in a park.鈥�

The seven dancers performing the contemporary work are in NDI鈥檚 advanced pre-professional level, and students at that level can put a lot of pressure on themselves.

鈥淭hese dancers are technically trained, and all I wanted was for them to really access that sense of possibility and joy and to let go of where they think they should or should not be, or where their future is,鈥� Gella says. 鈥淚 wanted them to stay in the present and really enjoy what they were doing in this piece.鈥�

New York City Ballet premiered a ballet to Camille Saint-Sa毛ns鈥� The Carnival of the Animals suite in 2003, with dancers representing the animals that each of the 14 movements are named after.

Rivera staged The Carnival of the Animals five years ago in 疯客直播 Fe with guest artist Morgann Rose when he was new to NDI. This spring鈥檚 Carnival is a new staging with 40 dancers and updated costumes 鈥� each dancer changes costume at least twice. The choreography is Rivera鈥檚 with some Rose touches.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a really nice way to engage students to learn more about classical ballet repertoire and to get to know classical music,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t also allows them to bring some acting to the characters.鈥�

Music director Jessie Wenchieh Lo conducts six local musicians playing Camille Saint-Sa毛ns鈥� The Carnival of the Animals and 鈥淒anse Macabre,鈥� 鈥淪abre Dance鈥� by Aram Khachaturian, and the Habanera from Georges Bizet鈥檚 Carmen. In addition to the elephants, lions, kangaroos, tortoises, and other animals, NDI added some New Mexico creatures.

鈥�Sabre Dance is perfect for the state bird of New Mexico 鈥� the roadrunner,鈥� Lo says. 鈥淲e鈥檙e using Habanera for the monkey, which is not originally one of the carnival animals, but it鈥檚 so classic. The monkey scene is very fun, very humorous.鈥�

Danse Macabre accompanies New Mexico鈥檚 state animal, the bear.

鈥淭hey are wearing bear outfits with flap ears, but at the same time they are skeletons and glow in the dark,鈥� she says.

The students chosen to perform in Carnival aren鈥檛 necessarily the most talented or skilled dancers, Rivera says, and they had to be ready and willing to work hard. The piece has teen dancers from the advanced level and younger intermediate dancers.

鈥淲e choose the most committed students,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e have rehearsals every Tuesday and Thursday with them. It鈥檚 a really great opportunity for the younger dancers to watch the older ones. The advanced dancers are role models 鈥� some of them have been dancing with NDI since five, seven, eight years ago, and some of them started with the outreach program or in the schools and then got interested in joining the Dance Barns programs.鈥�

Dance students spend hours and hours each week in class, refining their technique and learning different kinds of dance. Performing is a chance to shine and show friends, family, and the community how far they鈥檝e come.

鈥淲e just really believe in the transformative power of performance at NDI, and performing is always a really important part of all of our programs,鈥� Artistic Director Liz Salganek says.

鈥淚t鈥檚 important to surround young people with an audience who are going to witness and recognize and appreciate their incredible achievements,鈥� Salganek continues. 鈥淚 heard a student describe it last year and she said, 鈥榊ou know, I always see my family after the performance, and of course it means so much when they tell me that they鈥檙e proud of me. But all of these people who I don鈥檛 even know came up to me and told me that I was wonderful and how good I was. I鈥檝e never experienced that before, and it felt amazing.鈥欌��

The Twyla Zone

There is nobody in the dance world like Twyla Tharp. She has defined, upended, and reimagined contemporary dance from the stage to the movie screen, and at 83 years old, she鈥檚 still creating new works. Her 60th anniversary tour stops at the Lensic Tuesday and Wednesday, February 25 and 26, to perform a work from her expansive archive as well as a new one to music by Philip Glass reimagined on custom percussion instruments.

The evening will open with Diabelli, set to the Diabelli Variations for solo piano by Beethoven. The piece premiered in the U.S. in 1999 at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Ten of the 12 dancers in the company and concert pianist Vladimir Rumyantsev perform the almost hourlong work.

Marzia Memoli is a longtime dancer with the Martha Graham company who has worked with Tharp for two and a half years. She says Diabelli is technical, fast, and challenging.

鈥淚t鈥檚 very concentrated, like you need to hit the step, hit the counts,鈥� Memoli says. 鈥淪ometimes, we count so fast that I can鈥檛 even say the counts because they鈥檙e too fast. We are really dancing almost nonstop. You have 33 variations and some of them are really, really hard. There is so much to count, so much to say, and so much individuality 鈥� we also have characters we inhabit.鈥�

The music for the second piece, SLACKTIDE, is a reworking of Philip Glass鈥� Aguas da Amazonia, composed on piano in the early 1990s and first danced by a Brazilian troupe. It was recorded by a Brazilian instrumental group called Uakti on bespoke instruments. The Chicago-based Third Coast Percussion company had been playing its own version for a decade when Tharp asked them to collaborate on SLACKTIDE.

鈥淲e all sat down with Twyla in New York when we were there for our first performance at Carnegie Hall almost exactly two years ago,鈥� says Robert Dillon, a Third Coast musician. 鈥淪he liked the version that we had done, but she also really loved a lot of the sounds in that Uakti recording, and she was sort of pushing us to reimagine a version that incorporated some of that sound world as well.鈥�

Like Uakti, Third Coast made instruments specifically for the piece, including a glass marimba, a PVC pipe-based instrument, and xylophone made out of big pieces of red oak. 鈥淭hen we realized that we might need a string or woodwind, so we reached out to an old friend of ours in Chicago named Constance Volk, who is a really fantastic flute player,鈥� Dillon says.

Once Third Coast had gotten each of the eight movements (one is repeated) to a good place, they sent recordings to Tharp for input and made adjustments. 鈥淪he has such a strong background in music and is very knowledgeable, and it鈥檚 wonderful to work with her,鈥� Dillon says.

When Tharp was happy with the piece, Third Coast recorded it and sent it to New York. Memoli started working on SLACKTIDE with Tharp in May.

鈥淚 was going into her house in the morning, and we watched Twyla鈥檚 videos from the 1980s of her improvising in the studio,鈥� Memoli says. 鈥淪he was like, 鈥極K, I would like you to learn some of the stuff, and let鈥檚 see what we have.鈥� It was an amazing process with her to say, 鈥楲et鈥檚 really watch it, let鈥檚 really look at the arms right now, and then look at the feet and then look at what she was doing.鈥� She was always saying 鈥榳hat she鈥檚 doing?鈥� 鈥� she never refers to herself as me or I. Something very beautiful came out of it. It鈥檚 a ritual 鈥� the audience will be on a journey for sure.鈥�

Dillon says the first time Third Coast rehearsed SLACKTIDE with the dancers was shortly before the tour premiere, but first the percussionists got to sit back and watch.

鈥淭hey had set aside time to run the whole piece for us with the recording, knowing that we probably won鈥檛 really be able to see it when we鈥檙e playing with them,鈥� he says. 鈥淎ll of us were just completely blown away. I mean, jaws on the floor. It鈥檚 so beautiful.鈥� 鈼�

Emiliana Sandoval began her journalism career writing about dance, classical music, visual art, and film for Pasatiempo. She has been dancing since age 8 and still takes a class at least once a week.