Dance NOW! Miami resurrects extinct songbird for season finale

In 1987, on the Hawaiian island of Kauaʻi, a naturalist and wildlife photographer named David Boynton captured on tape what many environmentalists feel is among the saddest sounds ever recorded.

It’s believed to be the final mating call of a male Moho braccatus — a small songbird — singing for a female that never replied.

Researchers posit that the last female of the species perished in a hurricane five years earlier. Within a few years of Boynton’s recording, the species was declared extinct.

But the lost songbird returns in Dance NOW! Miami’s new contemporary ballet titled Love-less: Dance of the Last Moho braccatus.

It makes its world premiere this week during the company’s season finale called Love Lost And Found.

The piece was created by DNM’s co-founder and co-Artistic Director Hannah Baumgarten, who says she first learned about the bird during a screening of the Sam Green documentary 32 Sounds at the Perez Art Museum in Miami.

“I heard this haunting call with no reply,” says Baumgarten. “And I was awash with so many feelings about love and loss that I just knew in that moment, I was going to make a ballet about it.”

Baumgarten says she saw parallels between the songbird’s story and how human beings cope with loss and their own mortality.

“”For me, personally, this piece became about the observations I made with my parents as I’m watching them age,” she says.

“And I’m watching my mother grapple with the differences in the speed at which she and my father are aging.”

DNM’s season finale also marks the world premiere of Traces, by the company’s co-founder and co-Artistic Director, Diego Salterini.

“It is the other end of the spectrum,” says Baumgarten. The piece charts the universal search for love, seen through the eyes of one woman.

Dance NOW! Miami’s season finale clocks in at only 80 minutes long (with two short pauses) but covers a lot of ground.

In addition to the two world premieres, DNM will perform Tandy Beal’s Forest Dreams; Deco-de, Salterini’s homage to Art Deco design and architecture; and an excerpt from Blue Pencil, DNM’s commentary on government censorship and repression.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: LOVE LOST & FOUND
Dance NOW! Miami
Program III Season Finale

WHEN: Friday, May 8 in Lauderhill &
Saturday, May 9 in Aventura
Both shows 8:00 pm

WHERE: Lauderhill Performing Arts Center
3800 NW 11th Place, Lauderhill, FL

Aventura Arts & Cultural Center
3385 NE 188th Street, Aventura, FL

More information: dancenowmiami.org