Transcultural steps with a flair: Jimmy Gamonet de los Heros choreographs dynamic Latin counterrhythms for Miami's unique multiethnic ballet.

• Author: Durbin, Paula
• Position: Miami City Ballet

THE OPENING NIGHT of the Miami City Ballet on October 17, 1986, was an unforgettable debut. After a sampling of George Balanchine's neoclassical legacy, faithfully staged by Artistic Director Edward Villella, and a contemporary adaptation of Manuel de Falla's Amor Brujo, the curtain opened on the finale, a suite of nine tangos set to the music of the late Argentine composer, Astor Piazzolla. Six elegantly embracing couples, sultry legs intertwined, over-arched feet delicately darting at the floor, wove on and off the stage in baroque patterns. Except for the principal ballerina, who wore fringed black with pink tights, the costumes, as well as the set, picked up the art deco chic of the Ballet's Miami Beach surroundings. The piece was Transtangos, Jimmy Gamonet de los Heros' first work as resident choreographer, and it displayed the brand new Ballet to perfection.

The company is unique among George Balanchine's progeny, distinguished as it is by a Latin American flair. Obviously the exuberant cohesion of the Ballet's contingent of dancers and staff from the Americas cannot be constrained in a city facing south. But at least part of the Ballet's personality has been shaped by Gamonet de los Heros, a young Peruvian hand-picked by Edward Villella to create new works compatible with Balanchine's masterpieces. "Miami Spice," one critic has called the result.

Transtangos, now the company's signature piece, was specifically commissioned to make an indelible first impression on the community whose support was so vital to the company's survival. And its success, both critically and at the box office, made Gamonet de los Heros an essential element in the formula that has yielded a lengthening list of subscribers and a budget of over four million dollars. Any given performance now includes a dash of Jimmy among the Balanchine choreographies. So it comes as a surprise that Gamonet de los Heros was already in his mid-twenties before he was even exposed to Balanchine.

His initiation, though, was almost a case of deja vu. "I was doing classical stuff and modern stuff," he remembers, "but I was looking for something faster and I discovered the neoclassical line pretty much on my own. Of course, I had heard of Balanchine, but when I saw his work, it was wow! I immediately understood exactly what he was doing." How does he feel about sharing the program with the master who, as Villella and other disciples constantly remind us, was the twentieth century's greatest ballet genius? "It's a total privilege, a wonderful thing," he sighs.

Peru, where Gamonet de los Heros received all of his training, offers such a wealth of pre-Columbian and Spanish colonial traditions and treasures that its contemporary culture is often overlooked. A view of the facade of Lima's Teatro Municipal, a gold-balconied rococo jewel, is as close as most visitors come to its ballet season. Internationally, a reference to Lima's dance scene was a brief detail under the headlines when the Peruvian police raided a modest house in Lima and apprehended Abimael...