Frances Trombly’s art is full of stories, if you know how to look for them. Silent stories of women’s work, of the steady, committed act of weaving, creating something tangible from the deceptive fragility of thread and constancy. Stories of other women’s voices from art, from myth, from millennia of labor that keeps the world…
Category: Miami culture
Letters to Eloisa – the creation and destruction of Cuban writer Jose Lezama Lima
The documentary film Letters to Eloisa, about a revered, obscured Cuban writer and his fraught relationship with the Cuban government, tells the story of one man on an island. But director Adriana Bosch’s tale of José Lezama Lima, whose gorgeous, complex writing was hailed internationally even as the author, who allied and then broke with…
Classic ballet meets classic mythology – Dance Talk with Dimensions Dance Theatre of Miami on Greek Gods and Mortal Failings
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….
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,…
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.
She’s no FAKE – Carmen Pelaez’s true story of art and Cuban-American heart.
In Miami New Drama’s latest production, FAKE, author Carmen Pelaez takes on: art world politics (social, financial, ethnic), Cuban politics, cultural legacy, why art matters, how art is valued, who decides that value, who controls culture (Cuban, etc.), and – no biggie! – the nature of truth. Plus, since this is a play about Cuba,…
Poetry in Motion – The Return of Brigid Baker’s Big Beautiful and Wonderlawn
The choreographer and avant-garde godmother Brigid Baker stages a rare performance outside her Little Havana creative home, the 6th Street Dance Studio, this Thursday and Friday. Baker, a key (though not always sufficiently acknowledged as such) master dance teacher and artistic mentor in Miami, will present her pieces Wonderlawn, a reflection on the early AIDS…
Swamp Spirits – Dale Andree’s Magical “Everglades Imprint” for AIRIE
An escape from Miami hustle to the quiet of the Everglades seemed like an ideal way to mark the end of a frenzied 2018. But choreographer Dale Andree’s Everglades Imprint offered much more: a spiritual journey, a transformative moment of immersion in the wilderness at Florida’s heart, a place that is mostly abstract to most…