It’s ballet like you have never seen before. This month, Luminario Ballet returns with its third repertory season. Exciting and energetic, Luminario Ballet of Los Angeles provides us with the valuable experience of indulging in the artistic nature of the human body. This season’s repertory includes choreography from Josie Walsh, Jamal Story, modern dance legend Bella Lewitzky and Judith FLEX-Helle.

Luminario Ballet is a company that incorporates contemporary and classical ballet en pointe, modern dance repertories and aerial ballet. In addition to revival pieces, the company presents new choreography as well. A collection of dancers from everywhere, Luminario represents the truly diverse population of Southern California.

Consisting of a total of 10 pieces, this season of Luminario Ballet brings repertories that are very different from each other. Focusing on a wide variety of themes and concepts, the individual choreographers extend a fierce staged battle of the aesthetics and art of dance.

“[Josie] Walsh built upon a previous piece from ‘Luminate’ and brought a new piece. Walsh [expresses] grief [with the] death of her mother. Jamal [Story]’s piece is about the tumultuous relationship between people. I focus on urban life from my perspective. ‘Lift Ticket’ is a dance about life, anything to just about everything we experience from life,” Luminario’s managing director FLEX-Helle says, illustrating very briefly the themes on which the vibrant choreographies are built.

Feeding my curiosity about the inspirations that helped assemble such alluring and emotional repertories, FLEX-Helle provides me with an in-depth reply.

“[Inspiration] comes from all different places. Sometimes it’s a piece of music, and sometimes it’s a person that you meet or emotion that you experience. [Or from pieces like] Shubert’s ‘Winterreise.’ Eighteen twenty-seven, the year in which it was composed, was the coldest winter in Germany. It is about a man who gets dumped by a woman. I had a really bad breakup in Germany so I understand. [Inspiration] comes from imagination and past experiences,” she offers.

Perhaps it is because of her ability to depict her experiences in an alternate form that FLEX-Helle has mastered creating an emotional voyage for the audience. In the three pieces that she choreographed, FLEX-Helle exposes us to her versatile nature as a dancer. An aerialist herself, not only does she choreograph a ballet piece, but a big aerial showcase, too, which she calls the “LedZAerial.”

“[The aerial piece] is a real pleasure center,” she starts. “It’s the audience's G-spot. Everything is wonderful about it, and it will make people scream with pleasure.”

Anybody who doesn’t go out and see Luminario after hearing such a description is, in my opinion, missing out. Other than “Lift Ticket,” FLEX-Helle also choreographed a ballet piece in relation to Schubert’s “Winterreise,” an old and universal story of suffering after a breakup, as well as an urban piece that depicts her life.

“I live in a fantasy,” she says. “[This piece] shows what it is like to live in my world. It’s a kaleidoscopic vision of it.”

Other than providing wonderful details about her choreography, FLEX-Helle further hints that the finale piece unfolds as a very big picture that will make the audience feel as though they are experiencing something powerful.

With their passion for dance, FLEX-Helle, the other choreographers and dancers come together to gratify us with a treasured acquaintance with one of culture’s greatest art forms.

“All dance is a language,” she states. “You don’t need words, it’s only through movement.”

Dance is powerful, and it takes a certain skill to move the audience emotionally, solely through the movement of the body.



For more information, visit luminarioballet.org.