During Art Week in Miami, anything is possible — anything, at least, that concerns the creative arts. How about dancers selecting from an array of small sculptures to create mural-scale drawings underfoot as part of their choreographed performance? This weekend, the Arsht Center is programmed to host exactly that, in…
Balé Folclórico da Bahia aims to give an authentic taste of Afro-Brazilian history and culture with every high kick and undulation that unfolds onstage. Using drumming and religious chanting as part of its soundtrack, the company’s repertoire explodes with high-energy folkloric movement, electric sambas and lightning-fast capoeira moves exchanged between…
Inspired by sources as far flung as Amsterdam’s Red Light District and the women’s quarters of India’s Hawa Mahal (a royal palace in Jaipur), The Manganiyar Seduction promises to plunge concertgoers into the music and song of an ancient musical tradition and Sufi poetry. The Manganiyar are an all-male caste…
The cultural arts have become a thriving industry in Miami. And the city owes much of its creative success to the local dance community that’s helped place the region on the map as an artistic hub. From classical, modern, African and flamenco, to mixed-ability and old-school hip hop, there’s an…
Many are those who refer to dance as “magic.” But the dance group Pilobolus takes the reference one step further. Pilobolus, the season opener of the Knight Masterworks/Ziff Dance Series at the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, will quite literally blur dance and magic in homage to escape artist…
Pilobolus — the acrobatic international dance troupe — has been a huge crowd pleaser here in Miami. When they return to the Ziff Ballet Opera House at the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts this Friday and Saturday nights, they will bring with them five new performances, just in case…
It took some coaxing, but Lourdes López has finally moved into Edward Villella’s impressive old corner office at the Miami City Ballet studios in South Beach. “It’s nice, isn’t it,” says the company’s new artistic director with a shy smile, “and I can grow my gardenias out in the terrace.”…
Vladimir Issaev’s dance company, the Arts Ballet Theater of Florida, is about to begin its 2013-2014 season, and “there will be surprises,” Issaev says. He is referring as much to the digital animation woven through his “Firebird,” as the presentation of “Pentimento,” a work by Vicente Nebrada, a legendary Venezuelan…
About 20 women strong, the Venus Rising Drum and Dance Ensemble is the local cultural dance scene’s female empowerment movement expressed through West African movement and rhythms. The group will headline this year’s Miami World Music Festival, held from Sept. 19 to 22 at Florida International University’s Wertheim Center for…
For aesthetic and economic reasons, musical bilingualism between jazz and classical music is not the rarity — or the scandal — it once was. But few can master and dazzle in both idioms like Brazilian pianist and composer André Mehmari, who will be appearing for one night during DWNTWN Art…
Pedro Pablo Peña, founder and artistic director of the International Ballet Festival of Miami, has had to do more than pirouettes to make sure the dance celebration he started almost two decades ago continues and thrives, in spite of rough economic times. But the Cuban choreographer and former ballet dancer…
When Ifé-Ile dancers transition from contemporary to traditional Afro-Cuban motion on stage and petition the Yoruba gods for protection in a foreign land, choreographer Neri Torres will have revealed yet another poignant element of the emotional trials, triumphs and cultural evolution that is Cuban immigrant life — and dance. “The…
The iconic painting of six-year-old Ruby Bridges integrating a school in New Orleans deeply resonated with local dancer and choreographer Afua Hall. Her upcoming performance titled Red will explain why. The theatrical dance presentation will be showcased on three weekends, from June 28 through July 13, as part of the…
You know that a show is gonna work here in Miami when locals instinctively know how to pronounce the name. Take 8cho, for instance — you know it’s pronounced “oh-cho,” like Calle Ocho. 8cho is an Argentine production that fuses Cirque du Soleil with tango, electornica with aerial stunts. Yep,…
Shrouded in darkness and wrapped in a tangle of white fabrics, a mysterious four-legged, dragon-like creature haltingly weaves between the audience’s folding chairs. An increasingly loud bass drone and the unsettling tick-tock of an unseen grandfather clock accompany the creature’s progress. Sloshing and banging sounds are supplanted by squeaks, deep…
Three years after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, it’s easy to look to the island nation and wonder, what has been done, what has improved, is there rebirth? It can be a dark gaze — so much to be done. But for rays of light, look no further than Haiti’s premiere…
Rudi Goblen started breakdancing 19 years ago. Since then he has become a dancer, actor, performing artist, and writer, performing with Teo Castellanos’ D-Projects and becoming a founding member of Octavio Campos’ Camposition Hybrid Theater Works and Rosie Herrera’s Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre. A highly acclaimed b-boy, Goblen and his…
The Miami City Ballet Company (MCB) will close its 2012-2013 season this weekend at the Arsht Center with Broadway and Ballet, a valentine to Jerome Robbins and George Balanchine. No surprise there, since the MCB has been acclaimed far and wide for its devotion to the masters, especially Balanchine. What…
In a single weekend, we will be able to see two of this country’s reputable dance companies, both selecting ballets made in the United States and in a variety of American styles, in one Broward setting. The Broward Center for the Performing Arts is offering a ticket deal — $99…
The lovely weather in Miami these days, the vibrant cultural scene, the ethnically diverse food options — all are reasons for Alison Chase to jump for joy. After all, it is pretty cold in Maine, where she lives. But more important than all that: the modern dance giant — sh’s…
Last weekend, Miami Theater Center’s Sandbox Series presented the first of a three-weekend run of Pie Solo, Pioneer Winter’s “quarter-life” reinterpretation of the one-man show. The multimedia event is an autobiographical foray into Winter’s personal, family, religious, and queer history told in stages with contemporary dance, tap, a sax solo,…
