If you’re not familiar with the Christmas tale The Nutcracker, it goes something like this: A giddy little Clara can’t wait for the big day but to her amazement gets an early present unlike any other when the Nutcracker, the Sugar-Plum Fairy, and the Snow Queen all come to life…

Rennie Harris Puremovement is often called the “original hip-hop dance troupe.” And that’s an apt description. But the term is limiting, because Puremovement — now in its 20th year — is so much more. Anyone who still thinks that dance on the stage is a somewhat acquired taste for elites…

Last year, the British choreographer and filmmaker Darshan Singh Bhuller debuted his stunning Caravaggio: Exile and Death, which combined hyper- physical dance, video, and an edgy, complex soundtrack from a variety of musicians to tell the violent, super-sexualized, lonely tale of the great painter’s life. Now, his latest work that…

The International Ballet Festival of Miami is one fest that lives up to its name. It involves dancers and companies from 15 countries and will take over stages throughout Miami, Miami Beach, and even Broward, this Friday through September 16. And this year, there’s a new feature: the Dance Film…

Forget purity. Mixed cultural mashups are the Miami way. Take for example Friday’s SOULé evening. The performance begins with a pinch of flamenco music — in this case flamenco fusion from the band Gypsy Cat — and then adds in some R&B, American folkloric roots music, and contemporary dance. The…

Ife-Ile is a unique and fantastic Miami institution in dance. Almost by a thread, this dance company and its summer festival weave together intriguing performances using extremely limited resources. They’ll be on display once again as the Ife-Ile Afro-Cuban Dance Festival takes over the Little Haiti Cultural Arts Center (212…

Ife-Ile is a unique and fantastic Miami institution in dance. Almost by a thread, this dance company and its summer festival weave together intriguing performances using extremely limited resources. They’ll be on display once again as the Ife-Ile Afro-Cuban Dance Festival kicks off at Miami Dade College (Room 6100, Building…

Miami is an amazing multicultural cauldron, a heated brew of North American, South American, and Caribbean backgrounds. But even here, an event such as the third annual African Diaspora Dance and Drum Festival stands out as unique. Taking place over three days, this Friday through Sunday, the festival concentrates on…

The Lion King hogged most of Miami’s theater headlines this month, but Siudy Between Worlds/Entre Mundos, the next show on the calendar at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts (1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami), will take over with a bang. If flamenco dance and urban rhythms had a baby…

A great thing about Miami’s burgeoning — and increasingly vibrant — dance scene is its diversity. On most weekends, we can catch classical, modern, contemporary, or folk dance produced and performed by both small, incubator troupes as well as large, acclaimed companies. This weekend, one of our unique and eclectic…

The Bernice Steinbaum Gallery (3550 N. Miami Ave., Miami) has been a focal point in Miami’s artistic community for years, having introduced us to new local talent and international stars. But times change, and all good things eventually come to an end. Steinbaum will move on to other ventures in…

The Haitian dance company Ayikodans, much like the country in which it resides, teetered on the verge of disintegration after the devastating 2010 earthquake. With so much aid needed for a crumbled nation, saving one of Haiti’s premier dance companies didn’t seem a priority. But the Adrienne Arsht Center for…

Sean Dorsey is intrigued by tales of love, especially as told by members of an aging gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer (GLBTQ) community. And why not? Those are the stories of people who would have lived through some of the most traumatic, closeted, secretive, and yes, exciting, times in 20th-century…

For the third year in a row, the dancers of Dance Now! will interact with art at the Bass Museum (2121 Park Ave., Miami Beach) for The Ekphrasis Project: Art From Art. The name Ekphrasis references the Greek word to describe a dramatic expression of a visual work, but it…

Peter London teaches choreography at the New World School of the Arts, where he mentored Robert Battle, recently named director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. But long before that, the Trinidad native studied classical ballet and became a principal dancer in the Martha Graham Dance Company. Then he…

During the 19th Century, when industry and science were transforming the Western world, artists across the globe became obsessed with all the new possibilities on the horizon, both good and evil. Mary Shelley imagined a man named Frankenstein dabbling with chemistry and lightening to create a monster. The German romantic…

That the Flamenco Festival Miami 2012 returns to the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts (1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami) for the fifth time on Friday and Saturday says something about the newfound popularity of Spain’s most famous dancing export. Starting off on the streets of Andalusia, the form was…

To call Pilobolus a dance troupe is far too limiting — the members of this exhilarating and popular company are acrobats, dancers, and athletes who pull off feats of movement that border on the impossible. They mount each other and form pyramids and other physical structures, create spasms in their…

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has become a legendary force throughout the world since it was founded in 1958. The first and still most prominent African-American troupe broke all boundaries, not only in ethnicity but also in movement and style. Yet more than 50 years later, the company needed…

Giselle is one of the most famous ballets of all time. The leading role is also one of the most coveted; every ballerina who aims to be great aims to dance as Giselle. It’s the ultimate romantic lead, with its classical and graceful positions that require technical precision. And at…

The quintessential Argentine dance, the tango, is often associated with glamorous European-style café society, with the dashing attire and protocol of a bygone era and the sensuality of moving to that unique rhythm. But in fact, tango arose out of a cauldron of cultures and sounds that meshed in the…

Hip-hop has become one of the most significant and influential movements in music and dance during the past 30 years. It has changed the way we look, move, and groove. Unfortunately, it has also been mired in misogyny. The groundbreaking Brooklyn group Decadancetheatre is changing that for the better. The…