Inside a nondescript cream-colored trailer on the grounds of the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center in Liberty City, 13 aspiring Miami artists have been devoting themselves to a transformative summer. Ranging in age from 13 to 17, the participants are all female, all young women of color with a passion for the arts. For 13 weeks, they have sacrificed family vacations and jobs in or..

Many great plans have been sketched out and scrapped on bar napkins. It’s unique then to hear the story of one of South Florida’s newest theater companies, Lost Girls Theatre, whose co-founding artistic directors, Andie Arthur and Katie Siegel, found each other at a baby shower: “Somehow, between sharing appetizers and opening presents,” Arthur explains, “Katie and I got into a conversati..

The late poet Miller Williams used to call a poem, “the meeting place between the writer and the reader.” When it comes to theater, the play could be called the meeting place between the director and the actors, and when it works, the audience, which has the good fortune of witnessing the chemistry that transpires between a phenomenal play, an astute director, and a talented cast. This is..

Debuting its new space in the Bird Road Arts District, Havanafama Teatro Estudio kicks off its season with Bernarda, Juan Roca’s adaptation of Federico Garcia Lorca’s play, La Casa de Bernarda Alba. Performed in Spanish, Bernarda is about a widow who rules her home with an iron fist. Her five daughters are not allowed to leave the house or have relationships with men, and Bernarda has imp..

From the time he was 7 until he turned 33, David Holthouse harbored a poisonous secret: As the adults played cribbage upstairs, the teen son of his parents’ friends brutally raped him in a basement bedroom. If the weeping boy told, the older kid said, he’d come to David’s house and gut him like a salmon. So a damaged child stayed silent. The grownup David, finally, did not. Stalki..

Director Paula Ortiz’s brilliant spin on Federico García Lorca’s classic play, Blood Wedding, unfolds within the film’s first few seconds. La Novia (The Bride) opens with an overhead shot of a woman who appears almost mummified in a torn and bloodied dress. After a sudden gasp for air, actress Inma Cuesta peels away the sullied layers and slowly emerges, digging her fingers into the ..

El puerto de los cristales rotos (The Harbor of Broken Glass), co-written by Mario Ernesto Sánchez and Patricia Suárez, is based on a disturbing historical event. In 1939 Cuba denied entry to the 937 passengers (mostly Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany) aboard the MS St. Louis when the ship arrived at Havana harbor. From there they tried to dock off the Florida coast, but President Roo..

As ideas for plays go, the notion behind Jonathan Tolins’ 'Buyer & Cellar' sounds kooky and more than a little improbable.The setup is that megawatt star Barbra Streisand has an Americana-inspired collection of shops in the basement of her movie set-worthy red barn on her Malibu estate. And that an out-of-work gay actor gets a mind-blowing gig when he’s hired to man the diva’s quaint..

When it comes to Cuban film, it is very easy for wide sweeping shots of Havana’s decaying beauty to steal the show. Not the case in the 2014 Cuban film, Venecia, in Spanish with English subtitles, currently showing at the Tower Theater in Little Havana. Director Kiki Álvarez zooms in on the lives of three women in their twenties, laying bare their humor, vulnerability and secret frustrati..

For the last three decades Mario Ernesto Sánchez, founder and artistic director of the International Hispanic Theatre Festival of Miami, has had to navigate last minute cancellations, mountains of red tape, denied visas, earthquakes, hurricanes and more. It’s no wonder when asked what he loves about producing the festival, now in its 31st year, his wry sense of humor comes out: “My favori..

DanceAfrica, a celebration of African dance and culture, appears annually in New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C. Last seen in Miami in 1997, the festival returns this year thanks to the efforts of local dance group Delou Africa. For years, Delou Africa has brought visiting artists to the Miami community in a similar annual festival, the African Diaspora Dance and Drum Festival of F..

This month, Sophia Michahelles and Alex Kahn from Processional Arts Workshop (PAW) will light up Vizcaya’s grounds with giant fantastical lanterns and moving sculptures. PAW’s experiential and community-oriented events, inspired by carnival processions and parades, have appeared around the country and internationally. Their Vizcaya project, Whirl, will move through the estate’s landscape ..

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 night in July as the Rhythm Foundation’s Dance Thursday series continues at the North Beac..

Juan Carlos Lérida’s performance Bailografía, part of the seventh season of the Out in the Tropics festival, is not the story of a man’s trajectory as a flamenco performer over the course of three decades, although the title and the numerous venues and dates that flash above the stage hint at biography. Infusing traditional flamenco with contemporary movement and theatricality, Bailografí..

Okay, it may still be a stretch to call Miami the artsy-est city in the United States as some news outlets have proclaimed. But we are no longer that sleepy provincial town, even in summer. And artist and chief curator of Edge Zones’ Miami Performance International Festival (M/P16), Charo Oquet, intends to shore up Miami’s new artistic prominence by presenting the festival’s most ambi..

Ballet has long held a special place in Cuban communities -- both in Cuba and in Miami. The National Ballet of Cuba has a reputation of being one of the foremost ballet companies in the world; its school continues to produce some of the most highly trained and talented dancers performing today. This weekend, three of these dancers, principal ballerina Amaya Rodriguez, and soloists Massiel..

Imagine, it’s February 7, 2013, and you’re leaving Miami after a month-long visit with family and friends, resuming your dance career in Israel. At MIA, TSA agents repeatedly search and interrogate you, causing you to miss your connection. Why? Maybe it’s because of your Cuban passport and the many visas that mark your touring schedule. No one tells you. These were the circumstances t..

There aren't many festivals that can boast true diversity in their lineup, but Out in the Tropics has made that its mission and it is arguably one of the best. In its seventh year and presented by FUNDarte, artists aren't shy to say they jump at the chance to be part of the week-long series of music, theater and dance events, taking place this year in locations in Miami Beach and Mia..

This Thursday, after 13 years of incubation, Miami dancer and filmmaker Tiffany “Hanan” Madera’s documentary Havana Habibi will debut on the big screen. A collaboration between Madera and Brooklyn-based director Joshua Bee Alafia, Havana Habibi is an intimate portrait of a group of women coming of age through dance and struggling to navigate a charged political and cultural divide. Li..

Ilisa Rosal founded Ballet Flamenco La Rosa in 1985 and the company soon cultivated a renowned reputation for presenting flamenco, in all its forms, to local, national and international audiences. This weekend it will premiere “La Gaviota,” a flamenco ballet, and “Al Grano,” a program of pure flamenco that showcases the talent of artists from Spain, Latin America, Russia and the United St..

Amanda Keeley, founder of the pop-up artists’ bookstore EXILE Books, explores Miami’s sonic subculture centered around the Audiotheque Listening Club, which will conclude its third season with performances from current Club resident, composer Sam Ashley, on Aug. 10 and 17. Keeley talks with the founder of Listening Club and of the Subtropics Festival, Gustavo Matamoros, about how we can expand..

Some people send cards or buy gifts to show their appreciation. Alice Day started a hall of fame. The singer, dubbed “South Florida's first lady of jazz” by the late radio host China Valles, felt that this area's jazz people – musicians, club owners, promoters and producers, disc jockeys -- deserved more recognition. She founded the South Florida Jazz Hall of Fame to provide it. “It seemed..

Three-time Grammy winner drummer, composer and producer Terri Lyne Carrington, appearing with her quartet at the Coral Gables Congregational United Church on July 21 as part of the Community Arts Program (CAP) Summer Concert Series, has had a remarkable career. Born in Medford, Mass. to a musical family -- her father was a saxophonist, her grandfather a drummer -- Carrington was a child p..

Local musician Juraj Kojs has been making noise all around Miami. His latest project, Bang for the Train, is a musical campaign designed to highlight the local public transportation system. Kojs found that Miami’s system was inefficient to say the least, despite a strong personal commitment to travelling only by bus and train. After spending over three hours a day to commute just a short ..

Black Violin, made up of Will B. and Kev Marcus, have been creating a special blend of classical and hip hop music for almost two decades. Natives of Ft. Lauderdale, and graduates of Broward’s Dillard High School, they met in orchestra class and have been making music together ever since. On the heels of a highly successful European tour, they return home this week for a special engagemen..

En la cultura yoruba, y sobre todo en sus manifestaciones caribeñas como la afrocubana, las historias contadas oralmente por generaciones ocupan un lugar esencial. Esas historias, muchas de ellas preservadas ya en la palabra escrita, reciben el nombre de patakíes, y llevan mensajes a la manera de fábulas o metáforas. La profesora Isabel Castellanos (http://www.hispanocubano.org/cas/cu..

En la serie artística Out in the Tropics, la tarima no discrimina, la sensibilidad de los intérpretes es inclusiva y todo público es bienvenido. Producción de la entidad local sin fines de lucro promotora de las artes FUNDarte (http://fundarte.us), la séptima celebración de Out in the Tropics tendrá lugar del miércoles 15 de junio al sábado 18 de este mes en The Gleason Room del teatr..

El flamenco es una música de fusión. La tradición es de sobrevivencia, de cambio constante y adaptación al lugar y los tiempos. Mientras el sonido puede ser diferente, el espíritu de Nuevo Flamenco es el del flamenco de siempre. “La Flaka”, Jessica Cánovas, es una cantaora del siglo XXI. Ella incorpora en su música elementos del soul, R&B, electrónica o jazz; puede cantar bulerías y e..

La problemática del cambio climático está que arde. Sobre todo en un estado como la Florida, en primera fila para sufrir consecuencias drásticas. Llegar al público con este mensaje e inspirarlo a tomar acción, sin embargo, resulta desafiante. Se necesitan aliados en esa misión. Y en eso las artes pueden ser uno muy significativo. Que es a lo que apunta la segunda celebración anual..

La música tiende puentes, y por más de media década ya, dos entidades artístico culturales del sur de la Florida, FUNDarte (http://fundarte.us/fundarte_event.php?id=221) y Miami Light Project (http://www.miamilightproject.com), apuntan a eso al presentar en conjunto en Miami su Global Cuba Fest (https://youtu.be/RHG8N6b5-Pg) (GCF), el cual expone al público a lo más novedoso en música cub..