This 11th annual danceAble event within WinterFest features Jess Curtis/Gravity, an interdisciplinary mixed-ability performance company based in both San Francisco and Berlin, Germany that utilizes artists from Germany, France, Italy, Scotland and the United States. Includes Nudity.

Jess Curtis has created a body of work ranging from the underground extremes of Mission District Warehouses with Contraband and CORE (1985-1998) to the formal refinement and exuberance of European State Theaters and Circus Tents with Compagnie Cahin-Caha and Jess Curtis/Gravity (1998-present). Along the way Mr. Curtis has collaborated with the renowned FabrikCompanie in Potsdam, Germany to create the award-winning fallen He has been commissioned to create works for companies such as Artblau in Germany, ContactArt in Milan, Italy, Blue Eyed Soul Dance Company in England, and Croi Glan Integrated Dance in Ireland. In Spring 2010 he graduated with a MFA in Choreography at UC Davis.

Dances for Non/Fictional Bodies is a performance-based project that combines installation, cirque arts and forward-thinking, new performance techniques uniquely set in a studio that examines the roles of imagined societal ideals as a kind of "fictional body" that disables individuals in terms of their ability to see others and to be seen as beautiful, empowered and autonomous people. The company, in residence for a week, will offer workshops and discussions for able and non-able individuals.

"An in-your-face orgy of transformation and undressing."
— Lothar Krone Maerkische Allgemeine Zeitung

"A passionately boundary-crossing laboratory."
— Astrid Priebs-Tröger, Potsdamer Neueste Nachrichten

Read more about Jess Curtis/Gravity at www.jesscurtisgravity.org

Workshops: Monday through Wednesday, January 24-26, 6:00-7:30 pm, Mixed-ability, Performance Technique and Improvisation with Jess Curtis and company members, at Inkub8; register through Florida Dance Association by calling 305 310 8080. Classes for able and non-able dancers, Single Class $15, Three Classes and a Concert Ticket $60.

Discussion with Jess Curtis: Wednesday, January 26, 8:00-9:00 pm, Imaginations of the Body, Physical Diversity and Performance in Germany, England and the U.S., dancers, choreographers and general public invited, free

Targeted support for danceAble is provided by National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency); Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, Cultural Affairs Council and the Mayor and Board of Miami-Dade County Commissioners; City of Miami Beach Cultural Affairs Program, Cultural Arts Council; South Arts in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the State of Florida; and; VSA arts of Florida. Dances for Non/Fictional Bodies is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation Fund Project, co-commissioned by Florida Dance Association and Tigertail Productions, in partnership with Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco and the NPN. The Creation Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). Also, funded in part by the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts. NDP is supported by lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, with additional funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Community Connections Fund of the MetLife Foundation, and the Boeing Company Charitable Trust.

Florida Dance Association and Tigertail Productions are Partners in the National Performance Network (NPN). This project is made possible, in part, by support from the NPN Performance Residency Program. Major contributors include the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a Federal agency). For more information: www.npnweb.org.