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…
Category: Latin culture
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…
Desire and difference – Miami New Drama’s Queen of Basel remakes a classic
The rich, oblivious, self-centered white girl. The dark-skinned Cuban guy seething with ambition and anger. The desperate Venezuelan woman who fled the violent chaos of her home country. We think we know these characters, just like they think they know each other. But by the end of Queen of Basel, the new production from Miami…
Qué Pasa, USA? returns – Miami’s Nostalgia for Cuban Nostalgia
Miami’s most culture-defining, groundbreaking TV series is coming back as a stage show. No, not Miami Vice. It’s Qué Pasa, USA?, the bi-lingual story of a multi-generational Cuban immigrant family that made legions of Cuban-Americans – and hyphenated immigrants after them – feel at home in their new country. Now Que Pasa, created and broadcast…
Passionately local and live – Dimensions Dance Theatre of Miami
The two shows Dimensions Dance Theatre of Miami present this month feature elements that are already starting to define the ardent year-old Miami troupe: partnerships with local dance artists, pas de deux, Latino character, and live music. Given that DDTM’s founders and directors are married couple and longtime partners Jennifer Kronenberg and Carlos Guerra, who’ve…
Miami Motel Stories – Wild History in Little Havana
(Actor Charles Sothers hosts Timeline Live 305. Photo Jordan Levin.) Miami Motel Stories, the marvelously inventive blend of theater, history, and neighborhood invocation running in Little Havana’s deliciously dilapidated Tower Hotel, is a hit. Good reviews and lots of buzz mean that tickets to the second floor, and its intimate room by room scenes, are…
An Our Town for our town.
The moment during Saturday night’s opening of Miami New Drama’s rendition of Our Town, the quintessentially American Thornton Wilder play, that felt most familiar was the one you might have expected to be the most “foreign.” Mrs. Gibbs (the charismatic and marvelously vital Chantal Jean-Pierre) and Mrs. Webb (the formidable Carlotta Sosa), stood side by…
Despacito Broke New Ground for Latin Pop – and for its Female Songwriter
Despacito has been steamrolling records – most streamed song of all time, most played song on Youtube, most weeks topping Billboard’s Hot 100 (in the version featuring Justin Beiber with original singers Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee), most popular song in Spanish. On a more subjective metric, it may be the most pegajoso earworm ever…
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