The Miami based performance troupe CircX celebrated its 10th anniversary at the Fillmore with a salaciously disjointed collage of burlesque acts that fit beautifully within the bizarre context of South Beach, where the line between performance art and strolling down Lincoln Road is sometimes difficult to distinguish. Boots at CircX. Emceed by the intoxicating Octavio […]
Article · October 8, 2012 by Neil de la Flor
Miami is transforming before our eyes, becoming a mecca for artists, drawing crowds of people hungry for culture. Few events in Miami are so eagerly anticipated as the Miami Book Fair, an annual, weeklong celebration of local, country-wide and international writers both new and established. In the 2012 lineup is Campbell McGrath reading from his […]
Article · October 4, 2012 by Neil de la Flor
When I think about Edgar Allen Poe, which I don’t do often, the words terror and psychological torture come to mind — and suffering, too. His writing has a way of unhinging the human psyche to reveal the darkness that resides in all humans. These are things we fear the most, the things we keep […]
Article · October 1, 2012 by Neil de la Flor
When Shiva dances, his soul is free from the illusions that cripple him. Everything disappears. Light and dark. Yes and no. Now and then. Right and wrong. You and me. Just one. When Shiva dances, the universe is uncluttered and clear as day and what blinds him (and us) from his true nature emerges pure, […]
Article · September 27, 2012 by Neil de la Flor
Dropping F-bombs in church may seem sacrilegious, but it’s not, especially when those bombs are dropped by Junot Diaz, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2008). If you’re not familiar with Diaz’s work, I suggest that you start with his short story collection, Drown. Junot Diaz. Photo by […]
Article · September 24, 2012 by Neil de la Flor
The Performing Arts Exchange (PAE), the annual performing arts booking, showcasing and professional development conference, is already in progress but there’s time to catch the juried showcase performance scheduled for this Thursday and Friday, September 20th – 21st at the Colony Theatre. The juried showcase performances, which are free and open to the public, will […]
Article · September 20, 2012 by Neil de la Flor
“You can’t be deep without a surface,” author Jonathan Lethem writes. Sometimes surfaces are physical barriers that block us from seeing what’s beneath. Sometimes surfaces are also imaginary barriers that we erect out of fear of failure or success. Sometimes digging beneath and breaking these surfaces yields unexpected beauty or truth or happiness or whatever it is […]
Article · September 17, 2012 by Neil de la Flor
In Aimé Cesairé’s Notebook of a Return to the Native Land, the Martiniquan poet writes: “The only thing worth beginning: the end of the world of course!” Of course! What? I had no idea what Cesairé was talking about until I heard Cornell West lecture last year at the University of Miami. During that lecture, […]
Article · September 13, 2012 by Neil de la Flor
I never thought that in a million art walk years, an evening wandering through Wynwood on a hot and humid second Saturday in September would remind me of the blue skies and butterflies in Macy Gray’s all-too-happy song: “Beauty in the World.” “Listen to the sound,” Gray sings, “and lose it/in sweet music/and dance with me.” […]
Article · September 10, 2012 by Neil de la Flor
I’m sitting at Hartsfield International Airport thinking about love and life while looking at the 4th letter of the Greek alphabet. Delta Airlines dominates the landscape here, just like love seems to dominate the landscape of life. Possibly in honor of this all-too-human fact, The Love Life Foundation has created 3rd Annual Love Life Music […]
Article · September 6, 2012 by Neil de la Flor
I read Ruth Benedict’s “The Individual and the Pattern of Culture” while sipping iced coffee at Starbucks on the corner of Lincoln Road and Pennsylvania Avenue while I waited for the Knight Foundation’s 1,000th and final Random Act of Culture to commence. As I read, I wrote down this line: “Sometimes we need a random […]
Article · September 3, 2012 by Neil de la Flor