Perfect (PUR-fikt) adj. - 1. having all the desired qualities; 2. having no flaws or shortcomings; 3. correct in every detail.

Here in South Florida, the quest for a perfect body is a way of life. Spinning classes, weight rooms, power yoga studios, day spas, smoothie and salad bars, fat-free lattes and tanning accelerators are the norm, just as the thunderstorms, sea breezes, relative humidity and palmetto bugs are.

Yet, in some circles – yes, even here in the cosmetic surgery capital of the country – there is no such thing as a perfect body, and Germany's DIN A 13 Dance Company is coming to Miami this summer to put our so-called normality into question and make taboo an open issue.

The company, based in Cologne, Germany, which includes able-bodied dancers and dancers who use wheelchairs, will perform The Colours of Longing as part of danceAble, a program focusing on dance and people with disabilities, during the 24th Florida Dance Festival Thursday, June 27, at 8pm at New World School of the Arts Dance Theater, 25 NE 2nd Street, 8th floor, in downtown Miami. The performance is co-presented by Florida Dance Association; Miami-Dade Community College, Cultural Affairs and Tigertail Productions.
 

DIN A 13, which means off beat, unusual or out of the norm, was established in 1995 under the artistic direction of Gerda König. The company employs dancers and musicians with varying physical abilities as a means to create a new form of performing dance. DIN A 13 awakens cultural awareness and bridges the gap between people with different kinds of movement or expression. Beauty, fear, individuality and desire are the central themes in DIN A 13's provocative work. Expressed through dance, music, and video projection, The Colours of Longing creates a dream like environment that exposes innermost desires.

As the dance publication Revue put it, DIN A 13’s works are  "an attack on the idealism of a perfectly formed body, [and] at the same time a proud celebration of being physically different." Examples of this include artistic director König’s bold request of her audience: "Would you kiss me?" The query, part of the company's work Sittenbilder (Pictures of Moral), is all the more audacious coming from König, who uses a wheelchair to mobilize a small, misshapen body.

Deeply committed to not having their work labeled as "art for the disabled," DIN A 13 aims to lead the way in establishing a form of expression that merits inclusion in today's post-modern dance. Each choreographic work succeeds in breaking down the formerly impenetrable barriers between people with differing qualities of movement and expression, putting so-called "normalcy" into question and making taboos an open issue.

According to the German publication Tanz, in DIN A 13's work, "the disabled body is no longer a deviation from the norm, but an expression of variance. In fact, the disabled body becomes a source of additional possibilities." A critic for the publication Kolner Rundschau also writes "quite suddenly, one realizes what the real deformity is, one that we are completely aware of, and that is our aesthetic idealism in the art of dance."

DIN A 13 is co-presented by Florida Dance Association, Miami-Dade Community College Cultural Affairs, and Tigertail Productions as part of danceAble, a collaborative project of the three partner organizations, which is presented during the Florida Dance Festival. danceAble is working to create a new definition of dance, breaking the boundaries on the possibilities of artistic excellence in dance for all people.

TICKETS: $20 regular price; $16 students, seniors and FDA and Tigertail Members; $14 groups of 15+

Tickets available by phone through Florida Dance Association at 305-867-7111 in Miami-Dade or 1-800-252-0808 toll-free. For more information or to request a brochure, call 305-867-7111 or visit www.fldance.org, www.tigertail.org or www.culture.mdcc.edu.
 
 

SPONSORS

danceAble is made possible with direct funding support from the National Endowment for the Arts, Miami-Dade County Department of Parks and Recreation, VSA arts of Florida and Target Stores.