This 14th annual danceAble features Action Conversation, an interactive workshop on difference and politics, led by noted educator, filmmaker and choreographer Victoria Marks on Thursday, January 31. Following that, danceAble will offer two days of identical concerts, February 1 & 2 with Heather Maloney's new work unquiet | body and screenings of films by Victoria Marks.

See a short preview of Heather Maloney's unquiet | body

danceAble is a project for able and non-able dancers, produced and presented since the year 2000 by Tigertail and Florida Dance Association. It focuses on dance as a vital art form for persons with and without disabilities.

Victoria Marks is a professor of choreography in the Department of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA, where she has been teaching since 1995. Before taking her post at UCLA she lived in London, where for three and a half years she worked on her own choreographic projects and served as head of choreography at London Contemporary Dance School, a conservatory for the training of professional dance artists in Europe. She led her own dance company, the Victoria Marks Performance Company in the 1980s.

Marks is a 2005 Guggenheim Fellow and has received recent grants from the Irvine Foundation, the NEA and the Los Angeles, Cultural Affairs Council. In 1997, Marks was honored with the Alpert Award for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography. Over the course of her career, Marks has been the recipient of multiple grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the London Arts Board, among others.

She has received a Fulbright Fellowship in Choreography, and numerous awards for her dance films, including the Grand Prix in the Video Danse, first prize in Videodance Barcelona, the Golden Antennae Award from Bulgaria, the IMZ Award for best screen choreography and the Best of Show in the Dance Film Association's Dance and the Camera Festival.

Marks began her work with mixed-ability dancers in 1992 when Margaret Williams asked her to create a dance for the camera with the London-based mixed-ability company CandoCo. This film, Outside In, will be screened in the February 1 & 2 concerts. She creates dances for the stage, for film and in community settings. Marks' recent work has considered the politics of citizenship, as well as the representation of both virtuosity and disability. These themes are part of her ongoing commitment to locating dance-making within the sphere of political meaning.

Victoria Marks' Action Conversation workshop will incorporate movement and conversation on difference, politics of citizenship and the "other." The workshop will run from 7:00 to 8:30 pm, followed by a half-hour of open discussion. The admission fee is $10 per person.

Known for her highly expressive and kinesthetic style, Heather Maloney is a riveting performer, who draws on improvisational structures to create movement magic. She is a Miami-based choreographer, dancer and director of Inkub8. Her work has been presented at Bates Dance Festival, Florida Dance Festival, New World School of the Arts and in Fundanza Cumuna Venezula Performatica, Puebla Mexico and Austin, Texas.

Maloney has been awarded residencies at the Queens Museum of Art, New York; The Center For New Dance Development in Portland, Maine; Manhattan Community Arts Fund/ New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; National Performance Network (NPN) Residency through Tigertail Productions and another NPN performance residency with Women and their Work of Austin Texas. She has been awarded the 2007 Miami Dade Choreographer's Fellowship from the Miami Dade Department of Cultural Affairs. Maloney was selected as an Emerging Choreographer for Bates Dance Festival 2008. In addition she has been awarded a 2009 Individual Artist Fellowship for Dance from the State of Florida Division of Cultural Affairs. She has taught workshops at New World School of the Arts, Bates College as well as in Brazil, Mexico, and Venezuela and currently is adjunct faculty at Florida International University.

The premiere of Heather Maloney's unquiet | body is set on dancers John Beauregard and Joanne Barrett, and is a co-production of Florida Dance Association, Tigertail and Inkub8.

See a short preview of unquiet | body

This project is part of Is Paris Burning?, a series that fosters innovation in dance with a series of encounters. Is Paris Burning? is funded through John S. and James L. Knight Foundation's KnightArts Challenge. Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. The foundation believes that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. For more, visit KnightFoundation.org.

Season partners and supporters for Tigertail's 33nd season include: Aquarius Press; Books & Books; Bresaro Suites; The Children's Trust; City of Coral Gables Cultural Arts Program; City of Miami Beach Cultural Affairs Program, Cultural Arts Council; Clarke Foundation; Consulate General of Brazil; Consulate General of the Netherlands; Consulate General of Japan; E.S. Moore Family Foundation; Florida Dance Association; Funding Arts Network; The Galler Group; Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau; Japan Foundation; John S. & James L. Knight Foundation; JPMorgan Chase; MiamiArtZine; Miami Beach Botanical Garden; Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Mayor and Board of County Commissioners; Miami-Dade County Public Library; Miami-Dade County Public Schools; Miami River Inn; National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and additional funding provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; National Endowment for the Arts; National Performance Network with major funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency), Altria, MetLife Foundation and the Nathan Cummings Foundation; Pridelines; Publix Super Markets Charities; Joseph H. & Florence A. Roblee Foundation; Safe Schools South Florida; The Law Office of Linda M. Smith; South Arts; State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture; The Miami Foundation; VSA Florida; Vortex Communications; WDNA & WLRN FM; Wells Fargo and our many private supporters.