Get your bikini top and sparkly spanks ready, Miami – it’s the weekend. Whether you feel like watching Elvis become a fabulous drag goddess, consuming your weight in mini burgers, or relaxing through a weekend of reggae, it’s all here in this brilliant and short window we call the weekend.
You could say Bistoury’s 305 & Havana International Improv Fest, which debuts this Saturday at Miami Theater Center, has been in the works for almost 20 years. In 1999, Cuban-born choreographer Alexey Taran created the first improvisation festival in Caracas, Venezuela. Taran had already been working with improvisation techniques…
The members of South Florida’s burlesque community share one thing in common: mutual respect and high praise for one another.
“Millennia,” a 15-minute contemporary dance piece, looks back on the lives of millennials from the perspective of thousands of years into the future.
If one word could describe the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s presidency, it would be “scrutiny.” That concept is incorporated into the title of Karen Peterson and Dancers’ latest international collaboration. Scrutiny: The World Gone Astray — which explores the emotional, social, and political turbulence of our times through mixed-ability dance — will make its U.S. premiere May 11 and 12 at Miami-Dade County Auditorium.
A cruciform stage is enveloped in an eerie cloud of mist. Ethereal streams of light peek out beneath undulating furls of smoke. A nearly 6-foot-tall woman emerges, black beads dripping down her naked body, with a gigantic black cape that threatens to swallow her. As industrial music blasts, the shroud sprouts…
New York-based choreographer Reggie Wilson’s Citizen asks loaded questions about belonging and not belonging. Tigertail presents Citizen this weekend at Miami-Dade County Auditorium, and Wilson will offer a full program, including a panel discussion and multiple dance workshops.
A ’90s-inspired sing-along van ride with the “Fringy Mime Queen.” A one-man show about the complete history of drag. An epic battle among giants in a town called Normal. These are just some of the plays that will be showcased at the third-annual Fort Lauderdale Fringe Festival from April 20 to 23.
Endless interviews with women on the red carpet in glittering gowns. Flawless models selling the latest cosmetics in glossy women’s magazines. The new army of celebrity girls morphing into women in front of our very eyes. Young, attractive women are everywhere you look. What’s rarer, at least in entertainment and media, are women openly accepting or coping with the inevitable aging process. Aging is increasingly hidden in real life too, especially in Miami, where it’s masked with white lies, makeup, and cosmetic procedures.
Bilingual comic Javi Carrion has had an interesting life, to say the least. The Puerto Rican-born Miamian is a veteran of the South Florida comedy scene, fitting gigs in between working for an electronics company and raising his 9-year-old daughter. He’s set to tape a half-hour special, Miami Made Me, April 8 at the Open Stage Club.
Even if a joke doesn’t contain profanity, that hardly prohibits it from being cruel or offensive. Take this one-liner from British comedian Jimmy Carr: “A big girl once came up to me after a show and said, ‘I think you’re fatist.’ I said, ‘No. I think you’re fattest.’”
Festivals in Miami conform to a bit of a mold: They’re typically bass-heavy, unflinchingly hedonistic, and rhyme with “shmultra.” Mary Luft of Tigertail Productions has worked tirelessly since the ’80s to break that mold. Her company concentrates on bringing to the 305 the most contemporary and avant-garde performers for events that otherwise might never see daylight in South Florida.
Miami City Ballet will conclude its season this week with a rich selection of repertory pieces: two from George Balanchine, in very expressive but distinct modes, and one from modern-dance master Paul Taylor at his genial best. Company premieres this year have upped expectations and trumpeted growth, but the current program reconfirms the quality of the company’s long-held artistic assets.
Ballet Flamenco La Rosa’s studio evokes the feel of a tablao in Spain. The strumming of the guitar, the rapid-fire rhythms of footwork, and the soft vocals of the singer reach across time and place. The piece being rehearsed, La Casa de la Muñeca (inspired by Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House), is likewise timeless and carries universal themes, dealing with anxieties that resonate in the most innate way.
British standup comedian Jimmy Carr is, by his own admission, “rude, crude, and offensive.” His sense of humor certainly isn’t for everyone. However, for those who enjoy properly dirty jokes, Carr is a virtuoso. He combines the razor-sharp barbs of a roastmaster, the concise one-liner genius of Mitch Hedburg, and the filthy vocabulary of Louis C.K. with a wit as quick as that kid in elementary school who was always ready with a devastating “yo’ mama” joke.
In one duet, two dancers use their bodies as counterweights, springing forth from each other with explosive power. In another, dancers form a sharp line before torsos undulate and fall one by one to the ground, leaving a solitary figure standing among the fallen.
The world of high finance is equal parts confounding, infuriating, and downright terrifying. Most Americans look at Wall Street’s slick, greedy players and are resigned to the fact that it’s filled with money-hungry vultures, the kind of people who won’t settle for just one yacht. They’re sucking the economy dry,…
In 2016, Philadelphia-based Koresh Dance Company crossed its 25-year mark. To celebrate, the company is returning to Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts with a 25th-anniversary program featuring choice selections from its repertoire. It’s a retrospective of the development of artistic director Ronen Koresh’s style and creative voice.
There’s something funny about bringing art and comedy together. At least that’s what Yuval Ofir from Yo Space Gallery thinks. The art curator has been hosting comedy events around Miami for five years, uniting the creative community through laughs. This weekend, he plans to put on his usual comedy show, but with a street-art twist.
In an age when we’re all asking the world to provide us with more representation onscreen, be it television or film, we should also be demanding it onstage in the theatre. The Future Is Female Festival, a cross-country event that offers audiences short plays by women of all backgrounds, is here to do just that — and Miami is going along for the ride.
It’s all about the café. Not coffee, mind you, but the café. This is what Elena Flores would have us believe as she gets through her busy day in search of an elusive cup of that hot, black glory that fuels Miami. Watered-down American coffee simply won’t do. Neither will a cuppa tricked-out joe from Starbucks. No self-respecting Miami Cuban would settle for anything less than a real café.
For Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater artistic director Robert Battle, this week marks a special return, not just to the Arsht Center, where his company performs annually, but also to the city where he grew up. “It’s more personal [performing in Miami]; it reminds me where I come from,” says Battle, a Liberty City native. “My mom [Dessie Williams] still lives in the same house. I used to dance on the marble floor of our front porch. The Arsht Center wasn’t far away.”
