Happy to be kicking off the 2019-2020 season of Dance Talks at the South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center this Saturday, Nov. 19th by talking about a pair of my adult and childhood obsessions. Ballet, with the lovely, lively Dimensions Dance Theatre of Miami, and Greek mythology, which I adored and read obsessively as a kid….
Author: Jordan Levin
I've been writing about the arts in Miami since the early 90's, including 18 years at the Miami Herald, covering everything from experimental dance and performance to Cuban music and Latin pop.
Remain in Light – Brigid Baker’s Dance is a Natural Wonder
Choreographer Brigid Baker is fascinated by the miraculous strangeness of the natural world, by its beauty and non-human weirdness. In her newest piece, Remain in Light (set to and inspired by the visionary 1980 David Byrne/Brian Eno album), she celebrates the “otherness” of the natural world and attempts to meet and engage it through movement….
Fantastic Children – Giancarlo Rodaz and Area Stage’s Magical Matilda
Matilda the Musical, the show about an uncannily – perhaps magically – brilliant child currently running at Area Stage Company in South Miami, is an ideal show for Giancarlo Rodaz, its director and designer. Rodaz, at 24 the youngest son of Area Stage’s founders John Rodaz and Maria Banda-Rodaz, has grown up telling stories onstage,…
Cuba, Color and Contradiction – Carl Juste and Photos of Paradise Lost in Nostalgia
The pictures tell the story in Cuba: Paradise Lost in Nostalgia. And like in a good painting, the more you look, the more you see. Colors practically explode – red, blue, green, yellow. There is exuberance – a woman in a flaring red dress dancing with men in the street under a glaringly bright blue…
As Good As it Gets – Seeing Theatre in London for the First Time
This is not Miami. But I can’t resist sharing impressions from my first experience of seeing theatre in London. Particularly The Hunt, a riveting new play at The Almeida, a small, highly regarded venue that’s roughly the equivalent of an Off Broadway theater. I’ve never seen acting of such intensity, depth and nuance, nor a…
Beautiful Brutality – Machismo and Femicide in Tania Perez-Salas’ “Macho Man XXI”
Tania Perez-Salas’s Macho Man XXI is relentless: an hour of visually gorgeous, physically gripping, emotionally grueling – even abusive – dance. After her company’s Saturday night performance at Miami Dade County Auditorium, presented by Fundarte, one woman said she was left longing for some kind of redemption; for the men to be punished, for the…
Like Life and Love. A review of Rosie Herrera’s “Carne Viva.”
Rosie Herrera’s Carne Viva at Miami Light Project last Thursday started with a deceptively static pose: dancer Simon Thomas-Train holding Ivonne Batanero overhead. But this is not a traditionally triumphant dance lift. His arms extend straight up, his hands gripping her armpits, while her arms reach directly out to the side, so that she becomes…
Body Power – Rosie Herrera’s “Carne Viva” Bares Body and Soul in Wynwood
For a dancer, flesh is power: content, identity, expression, being. In Catholicism – and romantic love – flesh is weak: temptation, vulnerability. Choreographer Rosie Herrera digs into those contradictions in Carne Viva, the first group piece her company has performed in Miami in years, showing at the Miami Light Project’s space in Wynwood Thursday through…
Forever War – Combat Hippies and Teo Castellanos Fight for Hope in “Amal”
Amal, the name of the ferocious theater piece from the Combat Hippies which I saw last Friday, means “hope” in Arabic. And this riveting, authentic original work supplies that in all kinds of ways. Combat Hippies and Amal are the latest creations from Teo Castellanos, the theater artist and teacher/mentor who, despite numerous awards and…
Funk it up ya! Cuba’s Cimafunk brings new groove to Miami
Cuba’s Cimafunk isn’t just the next force in Cuban music – he’s the new funk hero. A review of his Miami show.
