Thursday, June 5 Who says all top-quality cultural events evaporate come summer in Miami? The moment hurricane season rolls around, temperatures linger in the upper nineties, and the humidity starts to wreak havoc with our hair, we thank the Lord that there’s still something to look forward to: the Coral…
Although radio man David Gilmore likes to refer to himself as the “purveyor of fascinating stories of the gay community,” his technical title for the past five years is that of executive producer for Outright Radio, an independent syndicated radio show that tells odd, wacky, and amazingly heartfelt stories of…
It’s Memorial Day weekend and Miami is partying. With no alarm clocks set for Monday’s workday world, South Beach sidewalks and nightclubs have turned into a rocking planet hip-hop. But a few miles away and across Biscayne Bay on NE Eleventh Street another huge (if not overlooked) scene is building…
Thursday 5/29 Is the United States’ wet foot/dry foot policy of immigration prudent? Is it fair? Legions of immigrants from Cuba and Haiti (and points beyond) risk their lives crossing the Florida Straits in rickety vessels each year, and each year the results remain the same: If you’re Cuban and…
There are more than 170 million people living in Brazil, the largest country in South America. Despite the dense population, there are only about 1600 movie houses — roughly the same amount as in Manhattan, according to Adriana Dutra, executive director of the seventh annual Brazilian Film Festival of Miami…
Thursday 5/22 Soulful chanteuse/songwriter Abenaa delves into her Ghanaian and Trinidadian roots to craft the deeply intimate and enlightened tunes on her first CD, Tuesday’s Child. Tonight she brings her spellbinding songs to the Funk Jazz Lounge at Sax on the Beach (1756 N. Bayshore Dr.). Her sound is a…
Thursday 5/15 Like the sour-apple martini, Chilean sea bass is perhaps one of the most fashionable items you can sample at your favorite bistro. But did you know that it’s WRONG? Just like wearing a mink coat might get you splattered with red paint by animal-rights activists, ordering the trendy…
This girl I know — we’ll call her Sophie — told me she never touches herself, you know, down there — she never masturbates. Impossible, I thought. “She’s lying,” another friend said, in shocked disbelief. After realizing as a kid that women actually poop and fart and do everything men…
Thursday 5/8 As far as we know, vocalist Nancy Wilson has never pulled the diva act. No preperformance tantrums. No firing her musical director during intermission. No demands for a dressing room decked out in white flowers and stocked with several bottles of pricey champagne. Of course she’s never had…
Like a biochemist studying strains of reality, Cuba-based choreographer/performance artist Marianela Boan is constantly seeking new and bold mutations. Her work is a study of contrasts, a morphing of opposing influences without preconceived notions of what will turn out in the end. In her quest to discover new forms of…
Musclebound fighters all slick with sweat and Vaseline. Bruised and battered warriors raging on despite puffy welts and cramping legs. Bloody brows, cut lips — the gasp of a knocked-out brawler struggling to get to his or her feet. There is something primal about watching a really good fistfight. Our…
My beer belly deserves some attention — national attention — I’ve decided. While my vanity tells me it’s not totally flabby, my lower torso leads my way through life. Gently sloped love handles are forever spilling over my belt line. It will NEVER be flat. I’m learning to love my…
More than 40 years into her career, composer and performance artist Meredith Monk describes her intricate vocal arrangements and particular style of dance as primordial, raw, visceral, and tribal. Since the 1960s, the ever-braided artist has forged a unique niche for herself, writing and performing mostly a cappella works that…
Who cares if you didn’t get to Hollywood to perform on American Idol? So what if the producers of Are You Hot: The Search for America’s Sexiest People deemed your inner goddess cold, bland, and pretentious? Despite recent rejections, you cling to the conviction — like our favorite jilted reality…
You will never see an E! True Hollywood Story program about the behind-the-scenes antics of Miami’s finest contribution to television culture, Que Pasa, USA? There will never be a reunion show about this hilarious social farce either. But if ever there were a television show that deserves such attention, it’s…
Your fifteen minutes of fame are about to begin. Lights up. You’re on. This is not a dress rehearsal. Marching onstage, blood thumping in your eardrums, throat dry, palms clammy, you find your light, take a breath, shape your lips to carry the first sounds of your performance. “To be…
There are myriad stories to tell in Miami. Two-bit fraud schemes, big-time drug smugglers, and quirky tales of immigrants in America add fodder to a screenwriter or director’s imagination. The city is, after all, a funky and cinematically appealing world to set a movie in. Add to that television shows…
A long time ago in a galaxy not so far away, a couple of dudes spent months camped out on a Seattle street waiting for the opening of the new Star Wars movie, Episode Two — Attack of the Clones. You might remember these losers and all the hoopla the…
After more than twenty years, one of Miami’s original b-boys, Richard “Speedy Legs” Fernandez, is beginning to feel the toll of the countless contortions he’s performed while break dancing. At 36 years old, the local dance guru admits he has trouble with his ligaments and his lower extremities may not…
Ten thousand years ago, when mastodon, woolly mammoths, and a fifteen-foot creature known as the dire wolf roamed the land, what we know as Biscayne Bay was a grassy valley about ten miles away from the Atlantic Ocean. A tribe of people known as Paleo Indians wandered here, hunting and…
“Can somebody pinch me,” requests director Wilkenson Bruna, nervously speaking moments before his first feature film, Wind of Desire, premieres at the Intracoastal Theater in North Miami Beach. “I’m still dreaming.” Before him, the seats are packed with the movers and shakers of Miami’s Haitian community dressed in their finest…
Miamians have been hearing the same promise for years: The city is a certifiable and important center for the arts. It is on the cusp of greatness, as far as an arts scene is concerned. The city has culture, with artists, musicians, and filmmakers of diverse backgrounds creating a new…
