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Veteran dancer and choreographer Maria Caruso is driven. In fact, many of the dancers with her Pittsburgh-based company Bodiography Contemporary Ballet call her "the M Train" because once she gets an idea, there's no stopping her.
Her latest project may be one of her most ambitious yet. Through July, Ms. Caruso is performing in not one but two off-Broadway shows in New York City, sometimes on the same night. In one, she's accompanied by six of her dancers, who have been making the trek between the 'Burgh and the Big Apple with her for more than a month.
"It's been absolutely exhilarating," Caruso said, calling the experience a highlight of her career heading into Bodiography's 20th anniversary season back home in Pittsburgh.
Caruso appears in her solo show "Metamorphosis" on Thursdays and Fridays through July 30 at the Actors' Temple, a synagogue-turned-theater in New York City's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood. On Fridays and Saturdays, she and her dancers deliver a blast from the past in Caruso's 1980s dance retrospective "Rearview Mirror" in The Theater Center's Jerry Orbach Theater at 50th Street and Broadway.
Previews of both shows began in early June, followed by auditions for a New York cast for "Rearview Mirror." The plan is for the New York cast to continue performing "Rearview Mirror" after Bodiography's dancers end their run in a few weeks.
For Caruso, performing with her dancers in Manhattan is like coming full circle.
"I started Bodiography in New York, and this is the summer 20 years ago that I made the decision to take the company to Pittsburgh," she said. "I feel like this was my calling to go back and honor where I came from and what really motivated me to create Bodiography."
Pandemic performing
The opportunity to share her shows on the off-Broadway circuit came about serendipitously when Caruso was commissioned to create a 1980s-themed show. When it debuted in 2019, agents and others from New York City's performing arts scene liked what they saw.
But COVID-19 delayed the M Train from leaving the station for more than a year. Originally, "Rearview...