Ballet fans and indie heads often sit on opposite sides of the aisle. But this weekend, they'll be tempted to mix company when Miami City Ballet performs The Golden Section, choreographed by Twyla Tharp and scored by David Byrne. A couple of years after founding Talking Heads and a few before starting his imprint, Luaka Bop, Byrne was engrossed in side projects with experimental musician Brian Eno. One of them was Catherine Wheel, the score for Tharp's 1981 ballet of the same name in which gilded dancers launch and leap to electric guitar strums and Moog reverb.
For one lucky reader, we have a pair of free tickets to Friday's performance. For the rest of you, you'll have to be content with a promo code that gets you discount tickets. We do what we can.
Not into the whole Talking Heads/classical dance spectacle? More traditional fans will be interested in the other featured ballet at this weekend's Open Barre: Paul Taylor's Company B, with music by the Andrews Sisters. Sure, it's more cheerful than provocative, but it's still worth it for the company's athletic, rag-doll-like jumping and jiving.
Anyway, to win the two free to tickets to Friday's Miami City Ballet Ballet Open Barre series, email your name, phone number, and email to [email protected]. We'll choose the winner on Thursday morning, and your tickets will be available at will call the night of the performance.
See Open Barre at 7 p.m. Friday and 2:30 and 7 p.m. on Saturday at the Lynn & Louis Wolfson II Theatre (2200 Liberty Ave., Miami Beach), but arrive a half-hour early for the open bar. Tickets cost $35 or use the promo code NEWTIMES1 and get them for just $25. Call 305-929-7010 or visit miamicityballet.org.
Need help envisioning a David Byrne-scored ballet? Here's a snippet of the Alivn Ailey Dance company doing "The Golden Section," but we can only guess that MCB does it better:
