Mary Damiano Photo by David Vance

Mary Damiano’s Arts Scene

I love a good party, and the closing night bash for the South Florida Theatre Festival certainly fit the bill. Held at Stork’s Café and Bakery on Las Olas in Fort Lauderdale, the two-month long festival drew nearly 100 members of the theatre community to celebrate a successful fest and to hand more than a dozen awards. The Silver Palm Awards, newly inaugurated this year, recognized those individuals and organizations who contributed to the festival in a special way. The very deserving winners included the casts of M Ensemble’s From the Mississippi Delta and Mad Cat’s Some Girls, both singled out for their ensemble performance. Hard-working Ricky Waugh won for his three roles in two productions during the festival, as a soldier in Promethean Theatre’s Two Sisters and a Piano and as both a convict and a priest in New Theatre’s The Mission.

Me and choreographer Ron Hutchins at the closing night party for the South Florida Theatre Festival

Other performance awards went to Nanique Gheridian for her work in Benefactors at Palm Beach Dramaworks, Erik Fabregat in Mosaic’s Dirty Story, and Bruce Adler in New Vista’s I’m Not Rappaport. In addition to the Silver Palms, the Theater League bestowed their own annual awards, the Remys, at the party. Sun-Sentinel theatre critic and arts writer Jack Zink was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award although he couldn’t accept it in person, as he was hard at work on assignment in New York. For more coverage of the Silver Palm Awards and all the fun of the Theatre Festival party, check out the photo galleries in this issue.

MAM Installs Rauschenberg in Artist’s Memory

Robert Rauschenberg’s painting Untitled, which has been installed at the MAM entrancel

The Miami Art Museum has installed Robert Rauschenberg’s acrylic on copper painting Untitled at the entrance of its plaza level galleries in memory of the artist’s passing in Captiva, Florida on May 12, 2008. “Rauschenberg was noted for his infectious enthusiasm and for his willingness to take risks and push boundaries,” MAM director Terence Riley said. “His eagerness to explore ‘the gap between art and life’ in an astonishing variety of forms and media made him among the most influential artists of our time.” In 2005, MAM presented a New Work exhibition of Rauschenberg’s Scenarios series. The works were based on photographs taken by the artist, primarily in the environs of his home in Captiva. Untitled was donated to MAM by Rauschenberg’s friend and fellow artist James Rosenquist in memory of Sheila Natasha Simrod Friedman. Rauschenberg gained acclaim with his first gallery exhibition in 1958 with his “combine paintings” into which he incorporated such diverse objects as stuffed animals, pillows, bed sheets, umbrellas, and radios. In the 1960s he made silkscreened paintings using images taken from the mass media, performances, and electronic sculptures. His collaborative projects, undertaken with composer John Cage and choreographer/dancer Merce Cunningham, were among the most important interdisciplinary endeavors of the period. In the 1980s he undertook his vastly ambitious ROCI (Rauschenberg Overseas Cultural Initiative), in which he traveled to more than a dozen foreign countries and created vast bodies of work made from photographs and found materials. The Miami Art Museum is located at 101 West Flagler Street, Miami. www.miamiartmuseum.org.

Garland’s Back and Rising Action’s Got Her

New York performer Tommy Femia brings his Judy Garland to Rising Action in Oakland Park

New York performer Tommy Femia brings his Judy Garland show to Rising Action in Oakland Park for eight performances only, May 28 through June 8. Femia will sing Judy’s songs and do her patter accompanied by pianist Gary Lawrence. Femia has won five MAC Awards, given by the Manhattan Association Cabarets and Clubs, for his impersonation of Judy Garland. His show Judy Garland & Liza Minnelli Live!, co-starring Christine Pedi of Forbidden Broadway and "The Sopranos", won another MAC award. For tickets and more information, visit www.risingactiontheatre.com.

Stonewall Library Celebrates New Home
The Stonewall Library & Archives is moving from its current location at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center to their new home at 1300 E. Sunrise Blvd., the complex that also houses ArtServe and a branch of the Broward County Library. They’re inviting the public to celebrate with them at a Hard Hat Party with hard hats, hammers, and music on Wednesday, May 28, from 6-7:30 p.m. Admission is free. For more information call 954-763-8565 or e-mail info@stonewall-library.org.

Our Show by Miami City Ballet Dancers Returns

Miami City Ballet presents Our Show

Miami City Ballet dancers proudly bring you their 2008 version of Our Show, – a program created by them, featuring exciting new works and personal favorites of their choosing. The performances will take place Friday, May 30 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Saturday, May 31 at 8 p.m. at the Miami City Ballet Studios, 2200 Liberty Ave. in Miami Beach. This year the dancers have put together a line-up of eclectic performances, including works by guest choreographers and pieces that Miami City Ballet dancers have choreographed. Dances range from classical favorites to sizzling contemporary pieces. “The entire production is run by the dancers from advertising and programming to production and program books,” said Elizabeth Keller, dancer with Miami City Ballet. “All of the proceeds from the event go directly to the participating dancers,” she added. The event will include an opportunity for audience members to meet the performers after the show. Dancers will also sell arts and crafts and baked goods in the lobby before and after the performances. Tickets are $35, except for Friday night, which will be $50 and includes a post-performance dessert reception with the dancers. Call 877-929-7010 or visit www.miamicityballet.org.

MOCA Presents a Rock and Roll Summer

Film still from Submit to Me Now, 1987 by Richard Kern, part of “Sympathy For The Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967”, which opens at MOCA May 29

“Sympathy For The Devil: Art and Rock and Roll Since 1967”, the first major exhibition to explore the relationship between contemporary art and rock music over the past 40 years will open at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Thursday, May 29 and will run through September 7. The exhibition, whose title is culled from the Rolling Stones song that invites the listener to “have some sympathy and some taste,” charts the intersection of the two cultural genres through art, album cover design, music videos, film and other materials, and examines the convergence of traditionally serious visual art and rebellious and irreverent rock music. Beginning with Andy Warhol’s legendary involvement with Velvet Underground in 1967 and culminating in a major new installation by British artist Jim Lambie, whose background as a rock musician and DJ heavily informs his sculpture, "Sympathy for the Devil" provides a serious and comprehensive presentation of art work arising form the intersection of these two worlds. The exhibition includes over 100 works of art by 56 artists and artist collectives, explores the varied ways art and music interrelated and overlapped in six geographic centers: New York, West Coast/Los Angeles, Midwest, United Kingdom, Europe, and the world. The emphasis is not on the aesthetics of rock, but on singular and significant works of art in various formats and media, that were created as a circumstance of the two cultural genres coming together. Many art-rock music videos will be presented, including videos by Art & Language and the Red Krayola, Mark Leckey, Pipilotti Rist, Richard Kern, Robert Longo, and Tony Oursler. MOCA is located 770 NE 125th Street, North Miami. For more info, call 305-893-6211 or visit www.mocanomi.org.

Jesus Quintero Studio Reprises Production

Francesca Toledo, Edgar Caraballo and Thomas Fonseca, who each play the character Werther in The Sorrows of Young Werthe

The Jesus Quintero Studio, in collaboration with the Miami Light Project,
will bring back its original adaptation of J. W. Von Goethe's novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, June 5-28. Quintero has directed a psychologically stimulating and profound composition using a combination of film projections, diverse international music, dance, monologues and dialogues in different languages, and an array of Grotowski physical action research. This combination of elements masterfully tells the story of the narrator's love triangle and draws audiences into the question of when love becomes a riveting obsession. Performances will take place at the Light Box Studio, 3000 Biscayne Blvd. Miami. For more information, call 786-853-3915 or e-mail TheJesusQuinteroStudio@gmail.com, or visit www.myspace.com/thejesusquinterostudio.

Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad Takes Down Miami

The cast of Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad

“I put the whore in hora,” declares the Goddess Perlman, ringmaster and MC extraordinaire of Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad—and so goes an evening of bashing all stereotypes ever uttered about Jewish women. Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad is a mix of comedy, cabaret and spoken-word with archetypal characters including the gals who learned to smoke at Hebrew School, got drunk at their Bat Mitzvahs and would rather have more schtuppa than the chupah. Creator Susannah Perlman is the comedian/chanteuse, the producer and the brains behind the Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad operation. Known as “Goddess Perlman,” she has graced the stages of Lollapalooza, The NYC Burlesque Fest at the Knitting Factory, The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Philly Fringe, Joe's Pub, Fez, Stephen Talkhouse, Ladyfest, the HOWL festival and even created her own event, The Goddess Fest, in upstate New York. Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad will take to the stage on Saturday, May 31 at 9 p.m. at the Alfred I. DuPontBuilding, 169 E Flagler St. in downtown Miami. For more info and to purchase tickets, call 800-838-3006 or visit www.brownpapertickets.com or www.theopentent.org.

Salt of the Earth

Letty Bassart, who will premiere her new choreographic piece, Salt at Space 4004

MiamiARTzine.com
readers are familiar with Letty Bassart’s way with words through her column ChoreoNotes. But Bassart is also known for her reverence for human experience, fluid and sensual movement, use of imagery, and attention to the telling details. Audiences have described her work as both “well crafted and raw.”
Last October, Bassart was awarded the prestigious Miami-Dade Choreographer Fellowship so she could develop her latest piece, Salt, which will premiere at Space 4004, May 29-31. Salt is a 40-minute quartet with an artistically diverse cast, featuring Roxana Barba (modern dance), Kalyn James (classical and hip-hop), Ilana Reynolds (modern dance), Gretel Trujillo (actor), and an original composition by New York-based artist, David Homan. Salt will also include lighting design by Kevin Roman, set-design by visual artist and sculptor Laura Luna, and illustrations by Carmen Cothern. “Salt began as an investigation of human currencies,” Bassart says. “In the past, boundaries were pushed by great walls, damns, and sizeable troops. Today it is micro technologies and the earth shifting beneath our feet that most alters our existence. Salt is one of our earliest technologies of survival. In the process of creation, pieces take on a life their own; they evolve and reveal themselves. For me Salt has now become the grey area between goodbye and hello. Like the substance itself, what Salt represents is different for each of us. It is about the way we experience the presence and absence of distance and weight.” The evening will also include excerpts from Letty’s 2007 work, Flower Chronicles, a duet featuring Reynolds. A dancer by trade, Letty Bassart’s choreographic career began through her life as a hospice nurse. “It is here that I began to understand the majestic nature of subtlety and the insurmountable power of time,” she says. Since her first piece in 2003, Letty’s solo work has been shown at Dance Theatre Workshop in New York City and at venues throughout Miami-Dade County. Earlier this season, Bassart was commissioned to develop a piece for the students enrolled in the Broward Community College dance department. In addition to her work as a choreographer, Bassart is director of operations at Arts for Learning. Salt will be performed at Space 4004, located at 4004 NW 2 Ave., in the Miami Design District, May 29-31, 8 p.m. Tickets are $20 at the door, cash or check. To reserve tickets, e-mail LettyBas@yahoo.com.

Brazilian Film Festival Returns for 12th Year

Marco Ricca and Alice Braga in The Milky Way, one of the competition films at the Brazilian Film Festival

The 12th annual Brazilian Film Festival of Miami, the largest competitive showing of Brazilian movies held outside of Brazil, will take place at several venues in Miami Beach May 30 through June 7. The nine-day festival will screen more than 35 short and feature films and will feature private parties and a closing night awards ceremony. Never before seen in the United States, all the films were completed or released to the Brazilian public between 2007 and 2008 and will now compete for top festival honors. This year the festival will also pay homage to five of Brazil‘s top contemporary filmmakers with special screenings of their films at the Wolfsonian Museum. The series will run from June 2-5 and will feature films by Andrucha Waddington, Fábio Barreto, Carla Camurati, Sérgio Machado and Heitor Dhalia. At the festival‘s closing ceremony, to be held on June 7, a jury comprised of movie industry professionals will reveal the year‘s best in 21 categories. Films at this year’s festival include The Milky Way (2007), starring Alice Braga, a vertiginous love story revolving around Heitor‘s search for Julia, whom he is desperately trying to reconcile with after a heated fight; Mutum (2007), a film by Sandra Kogut, which was awarded a Special Mention by the jury at the Berlin Film Festival, about a 10-year-old boy named Thiago who invents stories to explain the intricacies of grownups as he struggles to understand the nebulous world of adults; No Control (2007) which stars Eduardo Moscovis as a stage director obsessed with the injustice committed against Manoel da Motta Coqeiro, a 19th Century farmer whose case helped eliminate the death penalty in Brazil, and the play he puts on to bring those injustices to light; the documentary The World in Two Round Trips (2007), which tells the story of the Schürmann Family while they sail around the world retracing Ferdinand Magellan's voyage; The Grain (2007), a film about a woman preparing her grandson for her impending death. For more info and to purchase tickets, visit www.brazilianfilmfestival.com.

Catch a Wave of Nostalgia

Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon, in their beach movie heyday

The Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival is kicking off summer with the "60s Beach Movie Fest", a film festival featuring Elvis, The Monkees, Woody Woodbury, Sonny and Cher, and of course, Frankie and Annette. The fun starts Thursday, June 5 at 6 p.m. with a psuedo-beach party on the Cinema Paradiso patio with everything but the beach: cool tunes, rockin' chicks and the coolest guys in town, all free with tickets to the 7 p.m. film, For Those That Think Young, with special guest Woody Woodbury. On Friday at 5 p.m. there’s a daiquiri happy hour—shouldn’t every Friday have a daiquiri happy hour?—and then catch a pair of Frankie Avalon/Annette Funicello movies, Beach Blanket Bingo at 6 p.m. and How Stuff a Wild Bikini at 8 p.m Catch Sonny and Cher spoof many Hollywood classic movie scenes in there only movie together, Good Times, at 10 p.m. At midnight there’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which is not from the 60's, and not even part of the Beach Film Fest, but hey, it’s Friday, and if you’re already there and have been knocking back daiquiris, stick around and check it out. On Saturday at 5 p.m., Elvis comes to Fort Lauderdale in Girl Happy, with special guest Chris Noel. At 7:15 p.m. catch Ride the Wild Surf, and have fun at the pizza party, free with a ticket to either film. On Sunday at 5 p.m., there’s Wild Wild Winter, one of those rock and roll beach movies with performances by Jay and the Americans and the Beau Brummels. Enjoy a FLIFF-style luau with hot dogs, pineapple and Hawaiian music. The "60s Beach Movie Fest" wraps up at 7:30 p.m. with Head, starring The Monkees, and Monkee Davy Jones will be on hand as a special guest. All films are $5, but come in a bikini or your narliest jams and tickets are two for one. www.Fliff.com.

Erotic Art at Damien B.
To launch the book The World's Greatest Erotic Art of Today Vol. II, Damien B. Art Center has selected about 40 artworks from the winning 250 works selected by a jury to be featured in the books. Paintings, photography, sculptures, drawings and digital images will be exhibited, created by a wide range of international artists. Among those works will be some of the winners of the competition leading to the publication of the books The World's Greatest Erotic Art of Today Vol. I and Vol. II. The erotic visual art exhibition will run June 7 through July 31 at the Damien B. Contemporary Art Center in the Wynwood Art District, 282 NW 36th St., Miami. A special opening night reception will be held Saturday, June 7, 7-11 p.m.. For more information, visit www.damienb.com.

Miami Beach Actor in HBO Film

Doug Williford

Miami Beach actor and singer Doug Williford makes an appearance in the HBO film about Florida’s part in the wacky 2000 presidential election, Recount. The film stars Kevin Spacey, Laura Dern, Bob Balaban, John Hurt, Tom Wilkinson and Denis Leary, with then-candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore as themselves in archival footage. Williford speaks the third line in the first scene with dialogue in what he calls a “blink and you'll miss me” kind of role. But he’s already seen the movie and tells me he is proud to have been a part of it. Recount premieres on HBO Sunday, May 25 at 9 p.m. with an encore Monday, May 26 at 9 p.m.. For more info, visit www.hbo.com/films/recount.