Put these two Sarasota dance companies on your radar

In the local dance scene, Sarasota Ballet looms large. Founded in 1987 by Jean Widener Goldstein, the company will stage seven full-scale programs in 2025-26, host a visiting dance company and offer two dance extras featuring student and junior dancers.

Under the leadership of Sarasota Ballet Executive Director Iain Webb and his wife, Assistant Director Margaret Barbieri, the once-unknown company on Florida’s Gulf Coast has acquired a global reputation for staging the works of Sir Frederick Ashton. At the same time, it has commissioned new ballets from choreographers such as Ricardo Graziano, its principal dancer and former resident choreographer, as well as current Artist in Residence Jessica Lang, Gemma Bond and others.

There are other dance companies in town, including the Sarasota Cuban Ballet Studio Company and Endedans Contemporary Ballet, a company founded by Tania Vergara in 2002 that was based in Cuba for a dozen years. In 2022, Endedans was restarted in Lakewood Ranch.

We’ve chosen to focus on two companies with upcoming performances. The first is Sarasota Contemporary Dance, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary during the 2025-26 season. The second is Azara Ballet, which is wrapping its third season with a premiere by its new artistic director, Joshua Stayton.

Azara Ballet embraces the seasons of life with new work

Just in time for the vernal equinox, Azara Ballet will premiere a dance called “Seasons,” choreographed by its new artistic director, Joshua Stayton. 

A native of Cincinnati, Stayton is no stranger to Sarasota. Before he moved here in November 2025, Stayton danced with the Sarasota Ballet in 2015.

While he loves Florida’s climate, “Seasons” demonstrates an affinity for four seasons. But it isn’t only the changes in the environment that inform Stayton’s work, it’s the seasons of life.

Image courtesy of Azara Ballet

“Spring is birth and early childhood,” Stayton says. “Summer can bring storms, including peer pressure. Autumn takes us into early adulthood. We’re more composed but dealing with consequences. Finally, winter takes us into death before the cycle begins again.” 

“Seasons” is the second work Stayton has created for Azara Ballet. Earlier, he created a pas de deux called “Symphony” for a gala that he has expanded into a full ballet.

Founded in 2022 by husband and wife team Kate Flowers and Martin (Roosaare) Flowers, Azara embraces what it calls “body positivity,” prioritizing mental health in an artistic arena where striving for perfection can take its toll.

Stayton’s ties to Azara co-founder Kate Flowers date back to their childhood in Cincinnati, where they both danced in “The Nutcracker.” 

Since then, Stayton’s career has taken him to Orlando, Houston, and Tulsa in addition to Sarasota. Before returning to Sarasota for Azara’s 2025-26 season, he spent more than six years as a soloist with Cincinnati Ballet. 

Like many maturing dancers, Stayton has moved into teaching and choreographing. He has choreographed world premieres for Oakland-based Ballet 22, Cincinnati’s DeLa Dance Company, Tulsa Ballet’s second company and Cincinnati Ballet’s second company. 

As artistic director of Azara, he welcomes being part of a company that shares his values. “We’re trying to bring the joy back to dance. We’re trying to find that little child who showed up to dance class for the first time,” he says.

No. 5 in a family of eight children, Stayton followed an older sister to Cincinnati’s School for Creative and Performing Arts. He and his sister were the only dancers in the family. The other siblings played sports and were often coached by their father, who ran a carpet-cleaning business .

Stayton says his father taught him the value of hard work. “Do it, do it right and do it right now” was his dad’s approach to life, he says. 

That discipline has served him well in his dance career, he says. But the work ethic sometimes doesn’t take into account the cycles of life. That’s what Stayton hopes his new piece will do for both the dancers on stage and those in the audience.

Sarasota Contemporary Dance takes on tango

It’s not everyday that audiences get to see Sarasota Contemporary Dance founder and artistic director Leymis Bolaños Wilmott perform on stage.

Her last major show was in 2022, when she appeared in “Cuban Project: Historias,” her deeply personal work about Cuban children airlifted to the U.S. in the early 1960s after Fidel Castro came to power. Among the relocated children were her family members.

As part of SCD’s 20th season, which she has christened, “Mi Amor” (My Love), Bolaños Wilmott is returning to the stage. Her return was sparked by harpist Ann Hobson Pilot, who will join her in the tango-inspired program, SCD + Piazzolla.

Pilot, who spent more than four decades as principal harpist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, has collaborated before with SCD on this piece, choreographed by Bolaños Wilmott. But COVID cut short their previous effort. Because of pandemic shutdowns, it was only performed once, not the typical run of three or four performances.

During a recent interview at SCD’s home studio, Bolaños Wilmott credited Pilot with “giving her a nudge” to perform in the upcoming show. Normally, she would be the one staging the production, but she has handed that role over to SCD member Melissa Rummel.

“I had some hesitation at first because this body doesn’t look the way it did 20 years ago,” Bolaños Wilmott says. “But the chance to share the stage with Ann was just too good to pass up.”

Pilot said the matchmaker for the SCD + Piazzolla was Linda Bento-Rei, an educator and musician who plays flute with The Venice Symphony. Bento-Rei encouraged Pilot to get in touch with Bolaños Wilmott about creating a dance to Piazzolla’s music with Pilot’s arrangements.

Pilot said she and her husband, jazz musician and retired Boston Pops member Prentice Pilot, fell in love with tango music when they performed in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in the 1990s.

The couple learned about the music of Astor Piazzolla at the tango shows they attended, Pilot says.

Piazzolla’s primary instrument was the bandoneón, a member of the concertina family. Although he played a traditional instrument, Piazzolla incorporated elements of jazz and classical music into his works, creating a “new tango.”

Known for its collaborations, SCD typically has live music in two of its four programs. This year, all four of its shows will feature live music, Bolaños Wilmott says.

Because playing the harp is so physically demanding, Pilot has asked a former student, Michael Maganuco, to serve as her understudy in SCD + Piazzolla, which will also feature bandoneón player Rodolfo Zanetti. Rounding out the ensemble is violinist Marcus Ratzenboeck, a member of the Venice Symphony.