Pearl Cleage’s play “Flyin’ West,” an M Ensemble production currently on stage at the beautiful new performing arts center in Liberty City, the Sandrell Rivers Theatre, is set in humble Nicodemus, Kansas, the only remaining western town established by African Americans during the reconstruction period following the Civil War. Set in 1898, the play focuses on the lives of Sophie (Brandiss ..
Esteban, (http://estebanlapelicula.com/en/) the debut of Cuban director Jonal Cosculluela being premiered at The Miami Light Project tells the story of a 9 year old, living in Havana with his mother, who’s raising him as a single parent, and his perseverance following his dream of becoming a musician. The challenges seem overwhelming. Esteban and his mother struggle to make ends meet (htt..
Desperate times call for desperate measures. For some, that might mean taking a second or third job. Or robbing a bank. Or moving in with family. For Casey, a straight lip-syncing Elvis impersonator in a Panama City bar, desperation means forsaking the King’s rhinestone-studded jumpsuit for leg hair-hiding pantyhose, fake boobs and big-hair wigs, the better to sell himself as a fa..
Writing about “Broken Snow,” the Ben Andron thriller now getting its world premiere at the J’s Cultural Arts Theatre (JCAT) in North Miami Beach, is a proposition almost as tricky as the play itself. The intricately structured 90-minute drama is loaded with surprises, twists and turns, all revealed at precisely the right moment so that the play builds to its shattering conclusion..
As this steamy spring melts into a sweltering summer, Actors’ Playhouse is inviting theater lovers to a wedding – a big, fat Jewish-WASP wedding, otherwise known as the Broadway musical “It Shoulda Been You.” Though the show seemingly takes place in the present, the piece by book writer-lyricist Brian Hargrove and composer Barbara Anselmi is an old-fashioned, stereotype-filled throwba..
'Death & Harry Houdini' Makes Another Magical Moment at ArshtDennis Watkins knows how to make an entrance. In the House Theatre of Chicago’s “Death & Harry Houdini,” now back at the Arsht Center’s Carnival Studio Theater five years after it first wowed Miami audiences, Watkins arrives onstage with the help of theater technology unknown in Houdini’s day. Dangling upside dow..
Director Carlos Lechuga’s masterful unspooling of time in his second feature film “Santa y Ándres” constructs a uniquely Cuban mix of tedium and despair, resulting in an emotionally intense experience that sneaks up on the viewer in plain sight. The film opens with the stillness of a landscape painting: the eastern Cuban countryside of 1983 – rugged, lush, and verdant. The statuesque..
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The stage is a fixed space. It is the axis around which story, conflict, and character revolve. When that fixed space shifts, new possibilities emerge. Starting Wednesday, April 23, a shifting site for theater emerges at Deering Estate, a 444-acre environmental, archeological, and historical preserve along the edge of Biscayne Bay in Palmetto Bay. Four local playwrights have collaborated ..
Nearly two years ago, Miami’s Zoetic Stage took its first trip into the world of Harold Pinter with an intense, superbly acted production of the Nobel laureate’s 1978 hit “Betrayal” in the Arsht Center’s Carnival Studio Theater. Now Zoetic is delving further back into the Pinter canon with a riveting production of “The Caretaker.” This 1960 work is, like “Betrayal,” a three-character ..
With a heightened emphasis on “Noise” as an innovative musical genre, this sixth installment of the Miami Performance Festival International (M/P’17), running June 23 to 25, challenges South..
After 17 years as a principal dancer with the esteemed San Francisco Ballet, dancing every major role and style possible, Lorena Feijoo is retiring from that company to embark on a new journe..
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Miami choreographer Marissa Alma Nick is a storyteller. Her company Alma Dance Theater brings a particularly female inner world to the stage, through lush and sensual choreography. Nick’s..
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May’s “Mujeres” series of strong, multi-faceted, women-focused productions, commissioned for Miami Theater Center’s SandBox space, concludes with Spanish-born dancer-choreographer Carlota Pr..
One could say that Bistoury’s 305 & Havana International Improv Fest, which debuts this Saturday at Miami Theater Center, has been in the works for almost 20 years. In 1999 Cuban-born cho..
The process of creating “Shade,” choreographer Augusto Soledade’s latest full-length work, has been one of remembering and reconfiguring memory to discover new ways of talking about identity ..
Upcoming this week, Tigertail presents choreographer Myriam Gourfink and musician Kasper Toeplitz. Hailing from France, the two will be present for a 3-day residency at Subtropics’ South Beac..
From her home base at 6th Street Dance Studio in Little Havana, longtime Miami dance figure Brigid Baker has been slowly crafting a new performance piece. It’s not conceptual or political like con..
What better way to welcome summer than with a burst of live music? Leave it to the French to come up with the idea. Since 1982, they’ve marked the summer solstice with free concerts and p..
Mexican singer Natalia Lafourcade is as tiny as a house sparrow, with a voice as clean and pure as a bell. These delicate qualities belie a fierce inner strength and a steely artistic will. A..
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Project 305 has a simple aim – crowd-source a Miami symphony. For 100 days from January 31 to May 12 New World Symphony, in collaboration with the Knight Foundation and the M.I.T. Media Lab, ..
You hear the word “flamenco” -- what image comes to mind? A guitar? A dark-haired dancer? The color red, a ruffled dress? Did a piano by any chance enter the picture? Perhaps not. Pianist..
Critics on five continents have described her work as “indecent and breathtaking,” or some close variant. One blessed her for always “going too far.” Another stated he would prefer death to m..
Buzzing his lips and shaking his head, Rafael Davila gets ready to rehearse. In the Florida Grand Opera’s cavernous rehearsal hall in Doral, the floor is marked with tape to delineate the roo..
There’s a song James Blood Ulmer sings called “Jazz Is the Teacher, Funk is the Preacher.” If you bring in Mother Blues, along with the family hothead, Rock and Roll, you’ll have a better pi..
Ask about the Miami Sound to 10 people in South Florida and you’ll get 11 different answers. And yet, for more than 20 years, the Spam Allstars, a group founded and anchored by DJ Le Spam (a..
Nadie como el bailarín y coreógrafo español Antonio Gades para describir el arte que lo hizo internacionalmente famoso cuando vivía: “Un extracto de fuego y de veneno, eso es el flamenco”.
Fuego, veneno y, lo que es imprescindible, pasión, colmarán el escenario del Knight Concert Hall del Adrienne Arsht Center de Miami cuando se celebre la décima edición de Flamenco Festival Miami del 2 al 5 de marzo.
Flamenco Festival Miami X abrirá con el estreno en Estados Unidos de Stars of Flamenco, el espectáculo de gala (2 y 3 marzo) que dirige uno de los más cotizados exponentes del género, Manuel Liñán, con la participación de 14 intérpretes de primera categoría como Juana Amaya, Olga Pericet, Jesús Carmona, Patricia Guerrero, y la vocalista Rocío Márquez, entre otros.
A eso siguen, también en estreno, los espectáculos Pisadas, de la Compañía Olga Pericet, con la titular Pericet y el coreógrafo, bailarín y pedagogo del flamenco, Juan Carlos Lérida, el 4 de marzo, y el 5, Jesús Carmona y su compañía presentando un nuevo trabajo, Ímpetu’s.
Con ímpetu marchará luego el Flamenco Festival a la ciudad de Nueva York, no sin antes haber cautivado, como cada año, al sur de Florida.
En la variedad está el sabor
“Lo que queríamos transmitir, era abrir al espectador todos los distintos perfiles que hay en el mundo del flamenco”, dice el director de la gala Manuel Liñán vía telefónica desde Madrid. “Queríamos buscar artistas con una personalidad fuerte y que, a la misma vez, fueran muy diferenciados entre ellos”.
Ampliando la visión común que pueda haber sobre el flamenco como danza y cante en el que priman castañuelas y vestidos de lunares, Liñán tenía claro cuál era el mensaje que él y los otros intérpretes buscan llevar a todo tipo de público.
“Dar a entender que el flamenco se puede vivir de varias maneras”, dice quien ha vivido el flamenco desde que tenía seis años. “Y que puede ser canalizado de una forma o de otra. Por eso la unión de estos artistas tan diferentes y con personalidades tan marcadas”.
La finalidad, prosigue Liñán, es “aunar estos criterios, independientemente de que se expongan unas texturas y unos colores muy diferentes. Siempre nos estamos moviendo en el mundo del flamenco, dentro de su riqueza”.
Clásico y moderno a la vez
Como artista al frente de la compañía que lleva su nombre, Liñán se ha dado a conocer por presentar piezas de corte vanguardista que ponen de cabeza los roles tradicionales de lo masculino y lo femenino en el flamenco (en su Nómada, por ejemplo, Liñán, en calidad de bailarín, desafía portando una bata de cola y haciendo piruetas con un mantón como si fuera capote de torero). En Flamenco Festival, canaliza esa creatividad de otras formas.
“Personalmente, me considero una persona inquieta, y siempre que produzco un espectáculo, intento buscar unos estímulos diferentes con la finalidad de ir progresando y descubriendo nuevos conceptos”, analiza Liñán. “Pero concretamente, en la gala de Flamenco Festival, lo que he aportado es parte de mis criterios y, digamos que todo se mueve en un entorno clásico pero moderno. Puede ser interpretado de cualquier de las dos formas”.
La reinvención
El flamenco se reinventa, una y otra vez, sin perder su espíritu andaluz. Eso siempre lo tiene en cuenta uno de los más audaces e intrigantes exponentes del género en los últimos años, Juan Carlos Lérida, cada vez más conocido en Estados Unidos.
Dentro de la experiencia que representa Flamenco Festival, Lérida había participado en la edición de Londres de 2013. Su intervención en la de Miami marca su debut en Flamenco Festival de Estados Unidos.
“Pienso que este festival procura presentar un catalogo de artistas que actualmente representan las tendencias escénicas del flamenco, tanto musicales como dancísticas”, comparte Lérida desde Barcelona. “Su programación muestra a una serie de artistas jóvenes que navegan entre la tradición y la modernidad”.
Para Lérida, esto es una “oportunidad de mostrar en nuevos territorios mi posición estética y artística sobre el flamenco. Una posición que muestra la evolución del flamenco que yo practico y que se dirige hacia proponer inéditas perspectivas sobre lo escénico, lo corporal y lo percutivo en el flamenco”.
Cuando Liñán, Lérida y las nuevas generaciones del flamenco, abrazan la experimentación y la evolución, los públicos, incluyendo en Miami, los han acogido. Han dado la bienvenida a ese espíritu de innovación y de riesgo que asegurará la permanencia del flamenco. Y durante su primera visita a Miami, ese afecto de la gente por el flamenco sorprendió a Liñán.
“En verdad, fue una gran sorpresa para mí”, dice. “El público de Miami es un público muy cálido, que valora mucho nuestro arte, y que lo agradece mucho. Que al año lo necesita. Nos sentimos como si estuviéramos en España”.
Cuándo: del 2 al 5 de marzo, 2017.
Dónde: Knight Concert Hall del Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Miami, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami.
Boletos: $35-$100
Teléfonos: 305.949.6722, 877.949.6722
Detalles: http://www.arshtcenter.org/Tickets/Subscriptions/Flamenco-Festival/Flamenco-Festival-2017/#
Journalist, arts writer, instructor of English and Spanish
A bilingual journalist and writer for over 20 years, Juan Carlos studied Communications at Fordham University in New York. He holds a Master&rsquo..
