Many scholars have studied the dance forms transplanted from Africa to the Americas, but there was no need to read a heavy book to see what the dances of the African diaspora have in common: Saturday night’s shared bill at the Byron Carlyle — featuring Ife Ile, Afro Contempo, and Afua Hall Dances — was [...]
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We talk a lot about community engagement and the arts, but how does a museum truly engage a viewer beyond just hanging the art up on the wall and opening the door and saying “come in.” I recently had a visual art experience that went well beyond the tradition model of museum – viewer interaction. [...]
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For 12 years, Neri Torres has been commemorating the African roots of Cuban culture with the annual Ife-Ile Afro-Cuban Dance Festival. The festival draws dancers, drummers, scholars, and fans from across the country to celebrate the dance and drum traditions of Cuba, as well as the related traditions of Senegal, Haiti, Jamaica, and Trinidad.
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Eglise Gutierrez and Israel Lozano in Florida Grand Opera’s 2009-10 season production of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor. (Photo by Gaston de Cardenas) Last month, representatives from two local opera companies flew to Los Angeles for a conference hosted by the New York-based service organization Opera America, where they discussed the challenges facing their companies and [...]
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Davis Guggenheim, Oscar winning director of global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth has set his sights on his next topic – the sad state of K-12 education in America. Waiting for Superman opens Sept 24, but Dennis Scholl, Knight’s vice president of the arts and Miami program director, recently had an opportunity to preview the [...]
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One of the best things about contemporary art in the 21st century is how multidisciplinary it truly has become. And Miami is a good representative of this trend. Artists are rarely pigeonholed anymore into one descriptor: she is a sculptor, he is a painter. Most artists these days work across a number of disciplines, and [...]
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A very happy anniversary to Miami’s acclaimed International Hispanic Theater Festival, which is celebrating its 25th year this summer. Presented by KAC winners Teatro Avante and the Arsht Center in partnership with American Airlines, the festival is taking place from July 7-August 1 with performances Wednesdays-Sundays at venues throughout Miami, Miami Beach and Key Biscayne. [...]
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Today is a banner day for Miami dance: Rosie Herrera presents a full evening of work at the American Dance Festival in Durham, North Carolina — a feat that puts her in the company of other giants of dance like Martha Clarke, Paul Taylor, and Shen Wei. My heart is broken because I just spent [...]
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It might be a balmier and calmer Saturday Night for art walking, but still there will be lots of sights to be seen. A number of group shows are on tap, along with some multimedia offerings and some new faces. For instance at Edge Zones Art Center, two Puerto Rican-based artists will be introduced, Teo [...]
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So, what’s so funny about gay marriage? I asked new vaudevillian Sara Felder shortly after the kick-off panel for Out in the Tropics, the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender performing arts festival new to Miami Beach this summer. Here are her answers to that impertinent question, and a few more.
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