One year ago last month the Wolfsonian opened its ornate gates on Washington Avenue in Miami Beach with much fanfare and a spectacular inaugural exhibition. “Designing Modernity: The Arts of Reform and Persuasion” has since embarked on an international tour. The show, which explores major modern social and political movements…
thursday november 21 Miami Book Fair International: The twelfth annual book fair continues its “Evenings With …” series tonight at Miami-Dade Community College’s Wolfson Campus Auditorium (300 NE Second Ave.) with author Walter Mosley (Devil in a Blue Dress, Black Betty), reading from his latest novel A Little Yellow Dog…
Yehudis Levitin had been flirting with the law for a while when she got into her car on a Friday afternoon this past January and headed west to Coral Gables. This time, she had more than a close call. It was already dangerously near sundown, which signals the start of…
The current show at ART-ACT in the Design District is part of QueeRoots/QueerSpace, a three-week festival of gay and lesbian culture that has included performance art, a poetry slam, and video screenings. Mark Holt, who will perform his monologue Queerbait Friday, November 15, also organized the exhibition, which is casually…
thursday november 7 Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival: The eleventh annual Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival opened last week but now goes into full swing with screenings at five locations around Broward County, mainly at Coral Ridge Theatre (3401 NE 26th Ave., Fort Lauderdale). Among the films making their world…
Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Jose Clemente Orozco are commonly associated with work of heroic proportions. Renowned as leaders of the nationalist Mexican muralist movement in the first half of this century, their names have since been synonymous with revolutionary public art. Together with the sublime Rufino Tamayo, Rivera,…
On his first album in more than 30 years, pianist Bebo Valdes pays musical tribute to two of his lost colleagues: one American, the other Cuban; both, like Valdes, were pioneers in merging Latin music with American jazz. The first track on Bebo Rides Again, “To the Dizzy Gillespie,” is…
thursday october 24 Felix Morisseau-Leroy: “Young men, are you beating your drum or just kidding/give me the sticks, I’ll teach you/or help you cultivate your field/and from however far one hears the message/from however far this Vodou is heard/from evening to morning/from however far one has run to come/one knows…
Music by John Coltrane played on a small boom box in a classroom at Miami Beach Senior High as a group of students from several Dade County schools, their art teachers, and some artists from the South Florida Art Center quietly painted pictures of gold trumpets on pages torn from…
thursday october 10 Dream Supreme: Two American icons meet in the realm of the imagination as ART-ACT Productions (10 NE 39th St.) presents the touching comedy-love fantasy Dream Supreme. Saxman Leo Casino portrays jazz legend John Coltrane, who in the play idolizes Marilyn Monroe and purchases at auction the famous…
Pierrot Barra presides over the Pharmacie Magique in Port-au-Prince’s Iron Market, behind a row of stalls selling old American magazines. One airless afternoon last spring Barra, a Vodou priest, sat under the botanica’s corrugated tin awning on a cane chair, dressed in dark blue jeans and a T-shirt, without shoes…
thursday october 3 Designed for Consumption: Giant doughnuts, ten-foot-long hot dogs, streamlined diners, and bun-topped burger joints: The larger-than-life design of America’s roadside restaurants and food stands will be the subject of a lecture by Dr. Cynthia Elyce Rubin tonight at 6:30 at the Wolfsonian (1001 Washington Ave., Miami Beach)…
Albita Rodriguez, the Cuban singer best known for her androgynous persona and an affinity for tuxedos, is wearing a low-cut leopard-print gown. Her short hair glows platinum blond, and her face is made up in the shades of this season’s palette. Lounging on a curved sofa next to a chiseled…
People in Miami often imagine Havana. Some, in their mind’s eye, preserve an exile’s perfect vision of the city of their sweet childhood home. Remembering recent trips to Cuba, others recall a disconcerting visual composition of the grand Havana Cathedral, ornate hotel lobbies, and the exhilarating ocean promenade, juxtaposed with…
thursday september 19 Jon Stewart: New Jersey native, actor, and comedian Jon Stewart honed his skills in the shark-filled-water-like atmosphere of New York City’s comedy clubs, moving through the ranks to score appearances on HBO’s Young Comedians Special and Late Night with David Letterman. Those appearances led to a brief…
Five shows scheduled for Dade and Broward exhibition spaces this season focus on the art of Haiti, both sacred and profane. This is mostly a coincidence, and a pleasing one, that reflects a current international interest in Haitian culture and the fact that South Florida is home to both a…
Again and again on a Friday night, Hector Perez Paez walks over to a mound of chalk on the floor to the left of the stage at Gaucho’s Cafe, an Argentine restaurant tucked into a corner of SW Eighth Street. The tango instructor rubs the slick soles of his brown…
Newcomers to Miami might expect that a large city that is home to thousands of Cuban immigrants would be a good place to hear Cuban music. They might even picture Little Havana as Miami’s Cuban equivalent to Chicago’s South Side, where the blues dives that the Windy City is famous…
thursday september 5 Boukman Eksperyans: Get ready to sweat. Haitian roots supergroup Boukman Eksperyans brings its revolutionary spirit to Rezurrection Hall at Club Nu (245 22nd St., Miami Beach) tonight at 9:00. Boukman, Vodou music’s answer to the Rolling Stones, is currently on a world tour in support of its…
Miami is often audaciously referred to as the Latin American art capital, a title that Coral Gables dealer Gary Nader has even claimed as a trademark for his annual Latin American art auction. In a city in which the majority of the population is Hispanic, with inextricable ties to Cuba,…
thursday august 15 Dawn to Dusk: Director Larry Miller and choreographer Grace Campbell present France Luce Benson’s play about affirmation through culture and knowledge, Dawn to Dusk. The protagonist Aduska explores her personal history, as well as the history of her African and American ancestors, in order to improve her…
The contents of Miami’s closets and drawers are now on display around town. Organizers of the small but satisfying exhibitions at the Wolfsonian, the Metro-Dade Main Library, and the Historical Museum of Southern Florida have wisely eschewed centennial pomp and circumstance, opting instead for shows that comprise intimate reflections of…
