Time Out Miami: Time to Update Your Page

Just checking on what was up this weekend, and I found this! If I wish to partake in some  of what Time Out Miami calls Mediterranean flavours al fresco, all I have to do is this: http://www.timeout.com/miami/

Further searching gives me the deatails:
http://www.timeout.com/miami/miami/venue/1%3A2737/brosia

Next weekend, perhaps I'll go here:

¡Mira! To See or Not to See: That is the Question

This is the season when the snowbirds begin to hire those companies which will drive the beloved Camry up north. The sun is high, daylight extends till just before a baby’s bedtime, and those watering their lawns every morning are violating any program designed to sensibly conserve our precious resources. All this is enough to make one wonder where the winter has gone. Fortunately for those of us who live here year round, unlike the snowbirds, the direction we full-timers must travel on the weekend of Friday May 11-13^th is south, in order to see Hamlet: Prince of Cuba, which will be performed by the Sarasota-based, Asola Repertory Theatre at the stunning South Dade Cultural Arts Center.
Blasphemous though this may appear, Australian-born artistic director Michael Donald Edwards, has by now learned that the meaning of life for us down here, as talkaholic Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen now finally realizes, must pay its respect to the beloved island properly. Conscious of the local sabor, the Asola production transforms icy Denmark to tropical Cuba. Perhaps imagining Hamlet as Cuban sounds like a bit of a stretch; then again, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Prince of Denmark begins with a couple of dudes named Bernardo and Francisco. So who is to say the great one didn’t envision this? Moreover, for those in the know, tempers in Hamlet get quite steamy.

A bilingual adaptation does not mean that Cuban-born, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Nilo Cruz, who wrote the Spanish translation for this, owes Shakespeare some sort of apology; on the contrary, Edwards and Cruz are seeking and granting him multicultural props, given the rising reality of the numbers of those speaking the language, especially locally. Regarding the villains in the Bard’s original vision, one might wonder, against whom in Cuba might Hamlet want to extract revenge? Pragmatically, Edwards avoids the obvious villains; it’s set at the turn of the 19^th century – 1898. Ozzie G. might have talked to Edwards a few weeks before the outburst about José Marti, a hero legitimately worth loving.

Hamlet deals with understanding the meaning of life. Knowing how Shakespeare has captivated audiences everywhere for centuries, Edwards and Cruz fuse two cultures and languages, endeavoring to make Shakespeare accessible to our local audience. Great idea! Perhaps the Asola Theatre is going to earn a rep.

Madness, both real and imagined, is central to the original story. Heartache, betrayal, vice, corruption, and fury are all themes presented which we who live in Miami are easily able to fathom historically, politically, and personally. For all who think they cannot comprehend, imagine driving to the airport on the Palmetto the day before Thanksgiving; you will soon begin to relate to all the boiling blood.

Two of the performances, Friday, May 11, (8pm) and Sunday, May 13 (3pm) are in Spanish, while both Saturday performances (3pm and 8pm) are in English. Tickets are $30, $20, $10, with $5 tickets available through CultureShockmiami.com with conditions. Cars will be parked, tickets will be purchased, and snacks at the theater will be bought and sold graciously in Spanglish, so everyone should be happy.

The Walls of the World

The world may be going up 'n flames, but while it does, Miami is decorating itself in a million ways:

The Walls of the World

Ultra Music Festival

On the heels of so many wonderful winter events, another one of Miami’s mega events is on the horizon. It is one with one foot in fashion, a head relentlessly bobbing up and down, ears shattering, and hands scratching turntables. If you hope to attend, it’s already way too late and has been for ages. It’s a ticket much harder to get than the recent Heat/Knicks Jeremy Lin coming of age party or the Marlins opening day extravaganza. It may have been easier to get a seat to see President Obama at UM a few moments ago. It is also likely that anyone older than 40 might get reverse carded. It is the Ultra Music Festival at Bayfront Park downtown, and it has a kind of unreasonable cachet among our sons and daughters that is nonpareil when it comes to making their lives memorable.

As the Food and Wine Festival is to foodies, the Miami Film Festival is to those who dream of Hollywood (the western not the Franch-Canadian one nearby), and the BCS is to Cane football fans, that’s how strong the Ultra magnet is for the electronic music set. For cultural anthropologists like me, just going downtown to feel the vibe at the gate is an education. I’ve never been inside, and likely never will, but the lineup is as stunning as can be. Plainly put, it is Art Basel for those who like their eardrums shattered.

Over the last few year’s, everyone who is anyone has played Ultra. Ask anyone: “Who’s playing at Ultra?” Answer: “Everyone.”

Electronica is the umbrella term; some sub-genres are House, Dubstep, and Drum n’ Bass. Big names include Armin Van Buren, David Guetta, Carl Cox, Skrillex, Afrojack, and Kaskade. If you don’t know these names and have kids, you’d better take the lock off their door.

There are numerous stages and tents, all necessary because there are something like 150 deejays as well as the occasional live music. That boom, boom, boom, you hear that weekend won’t stop till midnight Sunday night. If you are downtown, you’ll hear it. Further away will depend on the wind.

The show begins Friday March 23rd, and from that afternoon on, there will be a solid parade of neo-Woodstockian tie-dyed headbands, neon swimsuits, furry boots, and animated, glow in the dark animation shirts. Really -- the fashion show is worth the People Mover ride from Government Center. If you have a ticket, a sophisticated rectangular hologram which allows for one and only one scanning, you will be able to join in. But if you want to see it and hear it peripherally, simply go check it out.

NE 2nd Avenue

 
Maybe it’s all cosmically related. I’ve been reading To Kill a Mockingbird for the umpteenth time. Shortly after Martin Luther King Day and just on the crest of Black History Month, one of those magical moments occurred. In To Kill a Mockingbird, young Scout Finch thinks of her father and says, “Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.” Atticus suggests, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”

For three nights, January 19, 20, and 21, Puerto Rican born, Miami bred Teo Castellanos celebrated the 10^th anniversary of his stunning, prize-winning one-man show, NE 2^nd Avenue. In it, he walks in the shoes of 8 characters – literally. Pumping Take It to the House and Trick Daddy, Castellanos dances, prances, and romances characters and audience alike, channeling characters embodying the jitney route from downtown through Little Haiti. He uncovers his city – our city – from inside the skin of 8 characters, changing shoes as he changes characters, coaxing tics and nuance throughout. It’s all quite uncanny. He spares no one linguistically – this is not a play for Rick Santorum. Yet it is fast, sweet, funny, sentimental, and brash at the same time – within the span of one character sometimes. It is also often moving. This is the Miami we live in – our reality – our characters.

One deals drugs in his namesake Wynwood and another is a kindly Jamaican. The jitney captain is a story telling Haitian; a hilarious African-American mother hangs laundry. The show is sealed with a riveting Jewish Cuban Israeli Lebanese story. Are these based on real people and their real Miami existence? Forget the portrayals for a second; Castellano attacks the writing like a drone.

In another life, Teo Castellanos must have been a bus driver. How else could someone so effectively observe, perceive, distinguish, differentiate, appreciate, and turn into such disparate characters found – well on this long stretch of street rarely populated by artists save for those devotees of what we call the four elements, rapping, spray-painting, breakdancing, and DJ ing. In The Music Man, it is said best about Harold Hill – you gotta know the territory.

I was in a seat at the Gables Stage a decade ago when Castellanos first performed it. I knew the streets, but not Miami’s streets. I know them much better now, in many ways, thanks to Castellano. (Disclosure time: he and I are good friends. I love the guy!) On Miami’s streets, he has been a younger teacher to me. In these ways, he has been a local treasure and mentor to many. Ask brilliant young Miami playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney, whose electrifying The Brother’s Size cast Castellano, or DJ Spam, who dropped the soundtrack for Castellanos’ Fat Boy, or Matthew Hill, wicked drummer in Scratch & Burn.

In NE 2^nd Avenue, Teo Castellanos reveals a beautiful mind, climbing in the skin of others, and walking in their shoes. We in the audience are along for the ride – in our city – Castellanos’ Miami.

We Are Seriously Serious About Our Work

Seen at Pulse: 

She: Listen! My nails were done for far less than this painting.

He: How can I get my hands on that painting?

Class Warfare 2