Arsimmer McCoy: I’m So Depressed
Poet, collaborator, culture and community maker Arsimmer McCoy doesn’t know how to answer “what do you do?” But she doesn’t care.
Darius Daughtry: Reverie in Black
Teaching and storytelling have always been inseparable for Darius Daughtry.
Letty Bassart: Here, Now
Letty Bassart started as a prototypical Miami dance talent – Cuban parents, ballet at age 3, New World School of the Arts straight to being teen star of powerhouse Spanish classical dance artist Rosita Segovia’s 90’s troupe, dancing with Brazilian choreographer Giovanni Luquini and other mainstay local dancemakers.
Carlos Fabián: Towards Now
Venezuelan theater artist Carlos Fabián came to Miami in 2019 to work with mentor Juan Souki on Miami New Drama’s production of Souki’s Viva La Parranda, which put residents of a rural Venezuelan village onstage to recreate their lives.
Gentry George: Afro Blue
As a boy in Miami, Gentry George was a misbehaving and reluctant dance student, until his first teacher, Linda Agyapong, told him his talent meant that dance could be his ticket to the world.
Sanba Zao: Affirming Haiti’s Culture
On a recent weekday morning, about 30 Haitian women, just finished with one of their regular dance classes at the community center in Oak Grove Park, listen patiently as Miami Light Project director Beth Boone introduces Sanba Zao, the man at her side. Flanked by MLP staffers, Boone offers flyers, coffee and Haitian pastries, inviting the women to join Zao in workshops and a concert at the center.
Migguel Anggelo: LatinXoxo
Venezuelan artist Migguel Anggelo’s LatinXoxo is a fierce and fabulous cabaret piece that looks at cross-cultural Queer identity and his fraught relationship with his macho father; the only show at this year’s Out in the Tropics Festival
Women immigrants take flight in Carla Forte’s Bird Woman
For several years, dance and film artist Carla Forte has interviewed scores of women immigrants, women who’ve crossed borders, who brought their children, or whose mothers brought them to a new country. Women who, like Forte, risked all to start a new life in a strange new place.
Acclaimed Dance Artist Shamel Pitts Brings the Heat in Touch of RED
Dance artist Shamel Pitts usually takes about nine months to make a piece. But Touch of RED, Pitts’ duet with Tushrik Fredericks, was birthed in a two-year-long, pandemic-bred incubation that fostered a particularly intense collaboration. Forged in the sweaty heat of physical closeness, in the instantaneous reaction of souls laid bare in a fraught arena illuminated by scarlet light, Touch of RED may be Shamel’s most personal work.
Teo Castellanos: F.Punk Junkies
I grew up with 70’s soul, funk, salsa, then came hiphop and punk, then post-punk and new wave. That’s always been me. Then I got interested in Afro-Futurism and Afro-punk. I like the reclaiming of punk music by people of color, specifically Black people. We tend to forget rock music comes from Black culture. That’s why Bad Brains and Fishbone are key – and because I love them.
