Programming a lineup of performances to appeal to Miami’s eclectic locals can be a challenge. We’re a town of die-hard South Floridians, immigrants, transients, cougars, silver foxes, and snowbirds. But that’s part of what the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts’ senior director of programming, Erica Lynn Schwartz, admires…
“Of course you can be a prince on stage, but you can be an animal as well? Can you move like a snake, move like a tiger?” With that, a wiry, energized Miao Zong — guest choreographer with Arts Ballet Theatre of Florida — demonstrated the proper technique for a…
Hand to God, which opened this weekend at GableStage at the Biltmore, is an irreverent black comedy whose greatest strength lies in one of the best casts ever assembled by the local theater company. The play, written by Robert Askins, takes place mostly in the basement of a fundamentalist Texas…
From Jekyll and Hyde to Fight Club, the trope of dual personalities has come in many forms throughout the history of storytelling. But it’s probably fair to say it’s never been tackled with as much irreverence and existential outrageousness than in playwright Robert Askin’s Hand to God, which opens at…
Florida is an easy punchline. Thanks to the, ahem, colorful characters that populate the Sunshine State, whether it’s a man robbing a Taco Bell after paying for his meal or a woman hiding her weed in her niece’s lunchbox, this place gives everyone the giggles. But although comedian Josh Wolf has…
In the back of The Light Box at Goldman Warehouse in Wynwood this past Saturday, 10 high school students are running through an extensive series of icebreakers — reciting everyone’s name in order, untying a human knot, touching your knee to somebody else’s foot. Physical contact is important for team-building,…
Louis CK’s love for Miami is no secret — he devoted an entire episode of his FX show Louie to the Magic City. So it’s no surprise that he’s booked himself a long weekend stay here in November, complete with four stand-up shows on back-to-back nights. The comedian announced his…
If you can finagle a day off so soon after Labor Day, you might want to do so — DWNTWN Art Days kicks off Friday, bringing a three-day schedule of more than 70 events to Downtown Miami’s museums, studios, theaters, streets, and waterfront. With exhibitions, live performances, outsize installations, social-issues…
At the Miami Hispanic Cultural Arts Center, a grand white house standing just west of downtown, Pedro Pablo Peña is organizing this year’s International Ballet Festival of Miami. Now in its 21st year, it’s one of only a handful of festivals like it in the world. What began with only…
Cuba and Sweden have seemingly tenuous ties. The 5,000-mile differential makes no difference for Havana’s Retazos Dance Theater Company and Malmö’s Memory Wax dance and theater company, though. Tomorrow night, Possible Impossible, the biggest collaboration between these two production companies, will take place at Miami-Dade County Auditorium. Miami’s Copperbridge Foundation presents…
Pink Floyd’s The Wall. The Who’s Tommy. Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d. city. These are some of the greatest concept albums of all time. They draw us in with music and keep us rapt in attention. They tell a story so painfully human, we can’t help but be moved. Any…
Young-adult fiction thrives in the land of fantasy. Boy wizard Harry Potter still rules (as proven by Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’s 3.3 million-copy North American debut last week), and popular series such as Twilight and The Hunger Games have successfully built upon the foundation laid by classics like A…
For the last three years, stand-up comic Paul Julmeus has been busy making a name for himself throughout Miami, most notably as the host of several unique comedy experiences including Gringo Bingo at Wood Tavern and Just the Tip at Yo! Space. And now he’s leaving us for the bright…
In West African dance, the rhythm of the drums and the movement of the dancer work together in unison, almost as one colorful, throbbing body. Other styles, from ballet to modern, disconnect the two; dancers move to recorded music or to the sounds of live musicians playing the same notes…
David Holthouse, author of Stalking the Bogeyman, which premiered this past weekend at Gablestage and runs through August 28, is an extraordinary talent. He tells stories like few others — with imagination, drama, and a profound understanding of the twisted side of human existence. His play is a powerful retelling…
David Holthouse meticulously plotted just how he would approach the man who had raped him as a child. He would shoot him in the crotch before putting two slugs in the back of his head. “I was going to walk up to him,” Holthouse wrote of his plan, “reintroduce myself,…
Ever caught yourself watching an episode of So You Think You Can Dance? and wondered, If only I could pop, lock, and, drop it like those guys? Now is your chance — well, sort of — as Miami City Ballet celebrates National Dance Day with a community-wide flash mob in Miami…
Miami doesn’t even know it, but it desperately needs a Baba Yaga. Luckily, Miami has a Baba Yaga Mama. We know this is a lot to process, but don’t worry — we’ll explain. Local artist and Knights Arts grant winner Shira Lee Abergel is looking for the community’s support in…
On October 30, 1938, Orson Welles broadcast a dramatic radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. Legend has it that the radio play was so realistic it caused mass panic among listeners who were convinced a real alien invasion was happening on Earth. The extent of the hysteria has…
It’s perhaps the most exotic dance music to hit Miami in recent memory: contradance. It’s Americana, the real thing, a far more sophisticated version of the square-dancing you may remember from gym dances in elementary school. A band called Cornbread and just as tasty is in the house each Thursday…
Imagine it’s February 7, 2013, and you’re leaving Miami after a monthlong visit with family and friends and resuming your dance career in Israel. At the airport, TSA agents repeatedly search and interrogate you, causing you to miss your connection. Why? Maybe it’s because of your Cuban passport and the…
When founder and artistic director of the non-proft Antiheroes Project, José Manuel Dominguez, set out to create a new work, he stumbled across the nothing short of epic life of French aviator and writer, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The author’s Little Prince is still one of the best-selling books in publishing…
