Center Dance Ensemble updates 'Billy the Kid'

Emilio Minto, who will dance the title role in Center Dance Ensemble's "Billy the Kid" next weekend, certainly looks the part of cold-as-steel outlaw, albeit a 21st-century one. With his muscled torso, shaved head and sprawling body art, he'd fit right in at Venice Beach, Calif., but he actually hails from Venice, Italy.

He moved to Phoenix as a teenager with his father and took a dance class to fill a phys-ed credit, only to discover a lifelong passion. He's in his seventh season with Center Dance, performing numerous featured roles, including Othello, the murderous jealous husband from Shakespeare.

"Billy the Kid" is a fictional biography of the Old West outlaw with new movement set to the 1938 ballet suite composed by Aaron Copland.

"He's very rebellious, but there's also a soft side to him," Minto says of his latest role. "There's the monster, but there's also the angel in him, and that's what we want to portray in this ballet. He's not just a killer. He's a lover, too."

Center Dance, a resident company at Phoenix's Herberger Theater Center, is led by choreographer Frances Smith Cohen, who, at 82, is the godmother of modern dance in Arizona. She thinks of herself first and foremost as a storyteller.

"Frances wants the acting," Minto says. "It's about telling the story, not just movement. At a lot of companies, there's no expression, no acting, but what I've learned with this company is to really talk to the audience with your face rather than just your body."

"Billy" is part of a season-opening concert at Center Dance titled "The Bad and the Beautiful." It will feature new dances by Cohen — including a humorous play on "Little Red Riding Hood" — as well as by associate artistic director Diane McNeal Hunt and guest choreographer Lisa Starry of Scorpius Dance Theatre.

One of Cohen's pieces, "With Wings," is what she calls an autobiography of a dancer, following a woman as she discovers the joy of movement, learns from a mentor and then becomes a teacher herself.

"It's very personal, that piece, and it's the hardest," Cohen says. "I love the storytelling kind of thing. That comes easily. 'The Diary of Anne Frank,' 'Dracula,' 'La Llorona,' these I can whip out. But when it gets to be so personal, how do you make it so it's still abstract? There is a challenge."

The idea of mentorship is key, and Cohen says "With Wings" pays homage to the women who taught her over the years, including the late Ethel Butler, a veteran of the fabled Martha Graham Dance Company.

"She was Martha Graham's confidante," Cohen says. "I heard more gossip about what really went on in the early days of the Graham company. Holy cow, it was juicy."

Butler, who died in 1996, was a mentor to many top talents in the modern-dance scene, teaching for years in California and Washington, D.C.

"She was tough on me. She didn't let me get away with a thing," Cohen says.

"Without these teachers, I would not have danced, and if I hadn't danced — look at all the students that I have influenced over the years."

Reach the reporter at kerry.lengel@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4896.

Center Dance Ensemble: 'The Bad and the Beautiful'

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, Oct. 23-25; 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 26.

Where: Herberger Theater Center, 222 E. Monroe St., Phoenix.

Admission: $14-$28.

Details: 602-252-8497, herbergertheater.org, centerdance.com.

Also: A shortened program will be presented at 12:10 p.m. Oct. 23 and 24 as part of the Lunch Time Dance Theater program ($6).