Into the Magic City
Celebrating Miami City Ballet at 40
An Interview With Film Director Ezra Hurwitz
As Miami City Ballet approaches the centerpiece of its 40th anniversary season, award-winning director and producer, Ezra Hurwitz, has created a film that captures the spirit of celebration, legacy, and bold artistic future.
Rather than offering a traditional preview, the film serves as a cinematic invitation; welcoming audiences into the heart of the company, its dancers, and the city they call home. It is an open call to celebrate, to gather, and to experience Miami City Ballet at its most vibrant.
What inspired the look and feeling of this film?
This film grew out of the energy surrounding Alexei Ratmansky’s world premiere, Roses from the South, Three Waltzes for Toby. This premiere feels like the true culmination of Miami City Ballet’s 40th anniversary season. Because the ballet was commissioned in honor of founder Toby Lerner Ansin’s birthday, it immediately felt like a celebration. I wanted to showcase a glamorous birthday party inspired by old-world Viennese waltzes, but with the kind of twist Ratmansky brings to all of his work. I wanted the film to reflect that sense of timeless opulence while also feeling alive, joyful, and celebratory.
How did you balance tradition with a modern Miami perspective?
I was really interested in how to take something rooted in a classic waltz aesthetic and make it feel fresh, electric, and undeniably Miami. There are people who might look at an old-world ballet and not immediately feel represented, so I wanted to push against that by making something that felt edgy, surprising, and expansive. Miami lives at this fascinating intersection of luxury and boldness, and I wanted that spirit to come through in a way that challenges expectations of what ballet can look and feel like.
Why were locations like the former Versace Mansion and Vizcaya chosen?
Shooting at The Villa Casa Casuarina (the former Versace Mansion) and Vizcaya Museum and Gardens grounded the film in a very specific Miami landscape. Those locations carry a sense of glamour, history, and extravagance that felt perfectly aligned with the celebration we were trying to capture.
How should audiences think about this film in relation to the performance?
This film isn’t meant to be a preview of the ballet itself as I feel that that experience belongs onstage, exactly as Ratmansky intended. Instead, it’s a cinematic invitation into the world of Miami City Ballet, a way of reminding people that this is a remarkable institution with 40 years of legacy and extraordinary artists. It’s really about saying: come celebrate with us, come be part of this moment.
This is your invitation. Celebrate Into the Magic City with us and experience Alexei Ratmansky’s Roses from the South, Three Waltzes for Toby—a tribute to founder Toby Lerner Ansin and 40 years of Miami City Ballet.
Feb 20 - Mar 1
Miami | West Palm Beach
