From Clay to Ali

Cassius Clay will forever be enlaced with South Florida's international profile since he defeated Sonny Liston in six rounds in Miami Beach in 1964. It was in South Florida that Clay would meet the Black Muslims. It was in South Florida that he furiously trained under the eyes of Angelo Dundee and Ferdie Pacheco at the now-defunct 5th Street Gym in South Beach. After that fight, Clay became a polarizing figure, and he also became Muhammad Ali. During that transformation, he turned what was a sleepy piece of the South into the technicolor landscape we enjoy today. Clay’s unorthodox boxing style has been equally criticized and admired. However, the admiration has always been greater, and his movements were the athletic equivalent of a marriage of sublime esoteric poetry and precision mathematics. Miami-born choreographer Shaneeka Harrell’s work has often sought the questions and answers of impulse and capacity among “bodies, space, sound, and combustions of thought,” and she will lead a Weird Miami Bus Tour as an exploration of Clay’s transformation into Ali through his daily training runs between Overtown and the 5th Street Gym’s old location. The tour will include dance, film, poetry, and music by DJ Le Spam. Departing from the Bas Fisher Invitational (BFI) (100 NE 11th St., Miami), this new addition to the Weird Miami Bus Tour roster is in collaboration with dance-oriented company Thought Loom and will cruise from 4 to 6:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are limited to 35 spots and cost $25 each. Free parking is available at BFI, and “tourists” must arrive no later than 3:45 p.m. Visit basfisherinvitational.com.
Sun., Nov. 16, 4 p.m., 2014