Arts & Culture

Although Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Swim begins Thursday, none of you average-size, nonindustry folk will be able to sneak past its velvet ropes. It’s invitation only. But like the big soirees of Art Basel and Ultra, sometimes the satellite events promise better times anyway. The more accessible Funkshion Swim opens Thursday…

Since its inception in 1986, the International Hispanic Theatre Festival has evolved into a globally recognized, multilingual, multiethnic cultural event. It is the only theater festival of its kind in the United States. Teatro Avante’s artistic director and chief organizer of the festival, Mario Ernesto Sanchez, has made it a…

The wines of Domaine Faiveley, the almost 200-year-old Burgundy vintner now in it sixth generation of family ownership, will be paired and poured with a four-course dinner prepared by chef Jarrod Verbiak at Miami’s smokin’ hot DB Bistro Moderne. Reception begins on Tuesday, with diner commencing a half-hour later. DB…

Wave the flag and eat well at Coral Gables’ cozy Angelique Euro Café, where from Tuesday, July 5, to Thursday, July 21, they’ll be offering a two-course dinner for $17.76 in honor of American and French independence days. Apps include gruyere gougeres and vichyssoise, while among the featured entrees will…

If you think cooking is a tough business, try boxing. Former WBA light-heavyweight champ and chef-restaurateur Marc Randazzo won’t serve you a knuckle sandwich at the Coral Gables Whole Foods Market on Thursday. But he will cook up the hearty, soul-satisfying Southern Italian cuisine that’s made his Randazzo’s Little Italy…

Zarzuelas (a lyric-dramatic genre that alternates between spoken and sung scenes) are common in Spain and its former colonies such as Cuba, but Florida Grand Opera has never performed one. Until now. In anticipation of Luisa Fernanda, the company’s first zarzuela and its 2011-12 season opener this November, FGO is…

In December 2007, the Florida Marlins traded superstar slugger Miguel Cabrera to the Detroit Tigers for a package centered on two major prospects: Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller. After three frustrating and fruitless years, both players were jettisoned this past offseason for far, far less than what the Marlins paid…

If you’ve ever taken an awesome yoga class, thank the Beatles. The practice grew wildly popular in the West only after Hindu guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi became the Fab Four’s spiritual advisor in the late ’60s. Studying under him in India, they learned transcendental mediation and the asanas — or…

For every Colombian Pablo Escobar, there’s a Colombian Gabriel García Márquez (ahem, he’s a Nobel Prize-winning novelist). But despite enjoying one of South America’s most sophisticated and rich cultures, Colombians often get short shrift in the eyes of Americans, even in Miami, for their connection to the drug trade. It’s…

Stories of escaping Cuba by boat are a dime a dozen in the Magic City. But it isn’t every day you hear about the struggles of a Jamaican immigrant. The play Jamaica Farewell, written and performed by Debra Ehrhardt, is a real-life account of leaving the island during a particularly…

South Florida’s all-encompassing car culture makes it nearly impossible to go for strolls on the (virtually empty) sidewalks without looking like a member of some vagrant, dystopian underclass. That’s why ArtWalk in downtown Hollywood is so important. It gives you a chance to stretch those limbs called legs that motorized…

According to actor John Turturro, if you sing in the streets of Naples, Italy, someone will join in and sing along. Want to waltz down the piazza? No problem — every passerby is a willing dance partner. But thanks to the 2008 film Gomorrah, the Neapolitan metropolis is better known…

Bowlers and rhinos have a lot in common. Both are among the least respected of their kind. Bowlers are viewed as pseudo-sportsmen, more concerned with throwing back a few drinks à la “the Dude” in The Big Lebowski than perfecting their craft. Meanwhile, rhinos are known as the couch potatoes…

Old electronic music genres don’t die — they just go back underground. Such is the story with breakbeats, the syncopated, synth-filled electro offshoot that ruled the Florida subterranean party scene until about a decade ago. (We even had our own special subgenre known as “Florida breaks.”) As the new millennium…

Little Haiti is getting a little bigger, if only for one night a month. Hosted by the Rhythm Foundation and the Little Haiti Cultural Center, Big Night in Little Haiti takes over the neighborhood every third Friday. This cultural festival brings together the bright colors of local artists, the savory…

Go figure. Beth Brickell, who wrote William and Mary Brickell: Founders of Miami and Fort Lauderdale, shares an uncommon name with her subjects but no family relation. Sounds about as likely as one of the city’s first and wealthiest landowners thinking about the future of a city more than simply…

How is it possible that someone can be blessed with such good looks and talent? Jealous as we might be of Tamara Sky’s dual threat, we have to respect someone who puts this much work into her craft. Whether it’s her recent Playboy spread that showed her channeling her inner…