For the Love of Dance: Delma Iles

Delma Iles has devoted most of her life to dance. As the Artistic Director of the Momentum Dance Company since its founding in 1982, she uses her expertise and passion of the arts to create an outlet for young talent and audience alike. Iles is also a trained choreographer and teaches classes at Miami Dade College which includes courses on ballet, dance history and modern dance.

“I love all forms of dance, but I work primarily in modern dance and ballet,” says Iles. “Ballet for its depth of tradition, rich history, elegance, and pursuit of perfection, Modern for its complete openness to new ideas and experimentation as well as its focus on the human condition.”

She loves the art culture expressing she finds solace in institutions like The New York City Ballet, The Paris Opera and the Museum of Contemporary Art here in Miami.

Her love of dance has helped her create the Miami Dance Festival back in 2003. “The Miami Dance Festival celebrates dance as an art form in one of the most dynamic urban centers in the U.S. – beautiful, exciting, stylish and fun loving Miami, Florida,” she says. “The Festival honors dance traditions and encourages innovation, presenting a diverse palette of dance works and artists in a wide array of genres and styles.”

The Festival was also created to help fund the arts locally even within a struggling economy. Organizations and companies from all over took part in helping the Festival come to life. Places like Dance Now Ensemble’s Diego Salterini and Hannah Baumgarten, The Isadora Duncan Dance Ensemble and Ballet Flamenco La Rosa, along with The Graham Company all reached out to help bring the Miami Dance Festival to what it is today. It is also “nationally and internationally recognized (with) dance artists including the Martha Graham Company, the National Dance Company of the Bahamas, Ballet Contemporaneo de Oaxaca (Mexico), as well as innovative and community-oriented events such as Flamenco Cabaret Night, Dance on the Beach, Film Night, and an evening of Water Ballet.”

The Miami Dance Festival has much to offer its audience with not only beautiful performances but classes and lectures to help educate the public about the appreciation of the performing arts.

“The Miami Dance Festival asserts that dance is vibrant, creative and unstoppable,” Iles says.  “Dance is unique. You can’t buy it. You can’t own it. It exists only in the dynamic moment of action – then it is gone. There is no substitute. It is the ephemeral fleeting moment of perfection and inspiration that we all seek. Come dance with us!”

For more information on the Momentum Dance Company, please visit www.momentumdance.com.

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