The interactive performance, Cubalandia, which makes its U.S. debut this Friday as part of the Out in the Tropics festival, invites Cubans to embark on an almost impossible journey: a vacation in their own country.

Directed by Nelda Castillo, founder of the Cuban theater group El Ciervo Encantado (The Enchanted Deer) and performed by Mariela Brito — the two co-created the piece — Cubalandia begins with the character Yara La China raucously offering tours of Cuba in the country’s two currencies: the peso in which Cubans earn their salaries and the Cuban convertible peso (called the CUC), which is the necessary currency for food, travel, and hotels. Regular pesos earned don’t add up to many CUCs, so Cubalandia’s dark comedy sets out to expose the hypocrisy of this two-tiered economy.

When Lillian Manzor, professor and founding director of the Cuban Theater Digital Archive at the University of Miami, saw the performance in Cuba, she was surprised by its humor, a departure from the group’s more serious style: “It’s a performance where you laugh with the main character, but it’s a laughter that really makes you think about what’s going on. It reveals the way in which everyone participates in an underground economy.”

Cubalandia will be presented in Spanish with English supertitles at the Colony Theatre on Miami Beach. We recently had the opportunity to ask Castillo about Cubalandia and the group’s U.S. debut.

What was the inspiration for Cubalandia?

Cubalandia emerged at a time when the government announced the extension of self-employment in Cuba. Consequently, the self-employed individual as a figure burst onto the national scene. From there, we began a research process that culminated in the debut of the stage performance where there are two protagonists: Yara La China and the audience, where her potential clients are. She offers excursions in Cuba’s two monetary systems and in each package she recommends strategies for recuperating expenses.

Does Cubalandia use props?

To illustrate her itineraries, Yara chooses a fragmented map of the island. The map, called “Doble Moneda” [Double Currency], was created by artist Lazaro Saavedra. It serves as a backdrop and reference point throughout the entire performance.

Since the performance is a dialogue between Yara La China and the Cuban public, what adjustments have you made to present the work to Miami audiences?

I don’t believe we’ve had to make many adjustments since Miami audiences are — for obvious reasons — very familiar with the reality in Cuba. Cubans who live in Miami are not only knowledgeable about the issue, they are part of it. What might slip past European or Latin American audiences will be as clear for Miamians as it would be for audiences in Havana or Camagüey.

Is there anything else you would like audiences to know about Cubalandia?

We are very happy that this will be El Ciervo Encantado’s first performance in the United States. We have great hopes for our performances in Miami since, after Cuba, it’s the place where the work makes the most sense because it’s a reflection on issues for which all Cubans suffer.

This article first appeared in the Miami Herald

That’s so Miami is probably a good phrase to describe the kaleidoscopic quality of Out in the Tropics, a contemporary performing arts festival that brings to South Florida a wide range of cutting-edge gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer artists or works of art.

Now in its fourth edition, part of the beauty of Out in the Tropics – which runs from June 13 to June 16 – resides in that it appeals to the diverse groups that make up this city.  “This is not just a gay festival, but a festival that celebrates the GLTBQ culture,” explains Ever Chávez, founder and director of FUNDarte, the local non-profit artistic organization that presents Out in the Tropics. “We are not in the ghetto. We are provocative.”

Hence a lineup that includes:

-       A daring lesbian theater collective from Havana, El Ciervo Encantado (The Enchanted Deer), making its U.S. debut with the very satirical, very funny and very Cuban interactive performance Cubalandia, on Friday and Saturday.

-       Queer Cuban American performance art veterans from New York City, Carmelita Tropicana (Alina Troyano) and her sister filmmaker Ela, bringing their latest work, Post Plastica Miami 2013, on Saturday.

-       Wildly original actor, singer/songwriter, playwright, and gay stage wonder Taylor Mac, with his A 20^th Century History of Popular Music Abridged, on Friday.

-       And the all male, hunky, and versatile – from Vivaldi to Gaga – string and singing quartet Well-Strung, on Sunday.

“I like the idea that Out in the Tropics is open. I like openness,” says Carmelita Tropicana from her home in New York City.

“We are in a world that thinks differently about identity. What identity was in the ‘80s is no longer the same thing,” says the Havana-born artist. “We all want a huge public, but how do we continue to push the envelope, how do we continue making things that matter, saying something?”

Saying something is what Cubalandia does, making us marvel at how director Nelda Castillo and actress Mariela Brito get away with what they do: being critical of life in Cuba and of all its harsh realities via the hilarious, eye-popping role of Yara La China, personified by Brito.

“This is a piece with a lot of urgency,” says Castillo by phone from Cuba. “All our works have been strongly critical of the problems we face, but we have never been censored because they are serious and well-researched.”

Castillo sent Brito on a trip around Havana to find out what people were saying and how they were reacting to the changes of Raúl Castro. This led to the creation of a piece two years ago in which Yara La China becomes the audience’s tour guide on a journey across the island.

“We discovered that the subject, although it stems from a local angle, works well because the theme is universal. It’s the theme of surviving in difficult conditions,” adds Brito. “And people connect.”

Which in the end is what Out in the Tropics is all about: people connecting.

Out in the Tropics, June 13-16, at the Colony Theatre, 1040 Lincoln Rd., Miami Beach, and at the Miami Beach Cinematheque, 1130 Washington Ave., Miami Beach. Tickets at the Colony, $30 general admission; for times and tickets go to fundarte.us, ticketmaster.com; 305-674-1040.

Tickets at the Cinematheque: $10 general admission; mbcinema.com.

A version of this story asppears in the Huffington Post 

Rudi Goblen started break dancing 19 years ago. Since then he has become a dancer, actor, performing artist, and writer, performing with Teo Castellanos’ D-Projects and becoming a founding member of Octavio Campos’ Camposition Hybrid Theater Works and Rosie Herrera’s Rosie Herrera Dance Theatre.

A highly acclaimed b-boy, Goblen and his troupe Flipside Kings tour nationally and internationally. Goblen always seems to push his artistic boundaries, and in his latest one-man show, “PET,” he tries his hand at interactive theater.  Written and performed by Goblen and directed by Michael Yawney, “PET” debuts at the Miami Light Project’s Light Box this Friday and Saturday at 8:00 p.m. We caught up with Goblen to learn more about “PET.”

Q: What is “PET”?

A: “PET” is an interactive one-man dance theater show. The main character is a cured love addict who runs a support group for serial monogamists –people who keep jumping into relationships. Now that he is cured [Goblen says with a laugh] he runs the support group and helps other people who are brokenhearted get through their world of suffering and trauma.

Where did the name come from?

“PET” came from the idea that in relationships everyone plays the pet at some time or another. Once I started writing it, I realized the support group was going to be called PET, so I turned it into an acronym: Preventing, Educating, and Teaching Center for the Broken Hearted.

What is the show’s interactive element?

The show is set up as a support group, and the audience is the group. I’m not going to fully answer the question because I want to leave it as a surprise, but I can say there is a call and response element between the performer and the audience.

Rudi Goblen’s “PET, May 10 and 11 at 8:00 p.m., at the Miami Light project Light Box at Goldman Warehouse, 404 N.W. 26th St., Miami; www.miamilightproject.com

Although their last major stage production of the season, Songs of Spring, closed at The Colony two months ago, Dance Now! Miami remains actively in production and will host not one, but three significant events for the company this coming weekend.

First, on Fri., May 31, the company presents Dance Now! Miami: Dance Under the Stars, a gala performance and reception that will honor Miami Beach Mayor Matti Bower and benefit the Dance Now! Miami Summer Intensive Scholarship Fund. It will take place at the Miami Beach Botanical Garden. The gala welcomes back the recent Songs of Spring collaborators, the South Beach Chamber Ensemble accompanying performances by past scholarship recipients and students of the last three summer intensives.  Dinner is part of the program.

On Sat., June 1, the company continues to host the fifth in the series of Open Stage performances at the Little Haiti Cultural Arts Center, where the company is in residence. The evening will showcase new works and works-in-progress of five local choreographers and Dance Now! co-director Diego Salterini. Celeste Fraser Delgado, arts critic, associate professor of English and Humanities at Barry University, and Artburst founder, will mediate discussions on dance creation and process between the audience and the dance makers.

Then on Sun., June 2, with two afternoon performances, the company returns for its fourth annual collaboration with the Bass Museum, Ekphrasis. This year the company’s directors drew their inspiration from Eve Sussman’s 1960s video work, Rape of the Sabine Women, a contemporary reinterpretation of the Roman legend of antiquity. The piece will interweave movement with the galleries’ exhibits on the second floor.

Asked how the company is keeping up with all these events in the course of three days, replied, “Lets just say my eyes are bloodshot and we are crazy to have this much going on,” says Dance Now! co-director Hannah Baumgarten about the frenetic weekend. “But our amazing teamwork is second only to our creative juices flowing and we are looking forward to seeing bodies in motion.”

She continued to answer some questions about the various performances.

AB: What is it like to bring back past summer intensive scholarship recipients and work with them again for the gala?

HB: Bring back is a funny term… once we develop relationships with these kids they never really leave our lives. In fact, their texts desperate for advice and help come at all hours of the night. These young dancers continue their training at New World School for the Arts, so they are close and we are always glowing to see their growth.

Open Stage and the Summer Intensive are two milestones that have come as a result of the maturity and growth of the company and organization.

How much has having a permanent home at Little Haiti Cultural Arts Center made these events possible?

Neither of these initiatives could have occurred without the Little Haiti Center and its director Anita Darbonne. She is to us what Rebecca Harkness was to the Joffrey Ballet — she provided us a home, a place to flourish. In return we are doing our best to share this support with the dance community and to use it to educate youth.

Unlike in the past, this year’s Ekphrasis work will center on one individual piece of work. How do you come to select the pieces you will work with and how far in advance do you start researching the pieces?  

It is always a lottery with the [Bass] Museum — we can only start to work once the exhibition is up, and this varies based on our calendar and theirs. We generally try to have about a month of time to visit the museum, decide what we are doing and start our research as choreographers, then about 3 weeks in the studio and the museum for rehearsal time with the dancers.

This is not a structured improv. This year we were overwhelmed and taken by the genius of Sussman’s work and decided to make one piece traveling through the five galleries of video art she created about the Rape of the Sabine Women. We enjoy both the challenge and the freedom to create work that is not constrained by traditional theater trappings. It will certainly be an intense ride this time.

Dance Now! Miami: Dance Under the Stars takes place on Fri., May 31 at the Miami Beach Botanical Garden, 2000 Convention Ctr. Dr., Miami Beach. VIP reception is at 8:00 p.m. followed by general reception at 9:00 p.m. Dinner and refreshments are served along with the live performance. General donations are $75 for single ticket holders and $100 for two attendees; VIP tickets are $125 for single ticket holders and $150 for two.

Miami Open Stage takes place at The Little Haiti Cultural Arts Center, 212 N.E. 59th Terr. in Miami, Sat., June 1 at 7:00 p.m. Admission is $10.

Ekphrasis 4, Sun., June 2 at 1:30 and 3:30 pm. at the Bass Museum, 2100 Collins Ave. Miami Beach. Performance runs approximately 60 minutes.  Admission is free with museum admission, which is $8 for general public, $6 for seniors and students, and free for residents.

The 2013 Summer Dance Intensive runs for two weeks at The Little Haiti Cultural Arts Center beginning on June 9th.  For enrollment and information please write to adarbonne@miamigov.com, or 305 960-2967.

For online admission purchases or more information go to dancenowmiami.org or call 305 975-8489.

In a single weekend, we will be able to see two of this country’s reputable dance companies, both selecting ballets made in the United States and in a variety of American styles, in one Broward setting.

The Broward Center for the Performing Arts is offering a ticket deal — $99 to see both companies on two separate days. And, like many things American, each of the five ballets delivers a distinctive taste, influenced by a worldly palette. The red hot contemporary Trey McIntyre Project (TMP) will perform three of McIntyre’s ballets, flavored by traditional Basque dancing, Shakespeare and more, Friday and Saturday at the Center’s Amaturo Theater. South Florida’s Miami City Ballet (MCB) will present repertory of George Balanchine, founder of the New York City Ballet (NYCB), and Jerome Robbins, best known for his Broadway choreography, Friday through Sunday at the Au-Rene Theater.

Local dance-goers might already have plans to see MCB, which conducts four programs plus The Nutcracker annually at the Broward Center (it will be in Miami at the Arsht Center May 3 through 5). They might also be familiar with the 10-member TMP, who performed there last year, led by the much sought-after choreographer McIntyre, who has created dances for ballet companies from Moscow to Santiago, New York to Chicago. Seeing both in one weekend, a viewer can observe how choreographers working in the United States have made different soups from the same stock — the stock, in this case, being classical ballet vocabulary.

Dancer Elizabeth Keller embodies many of dance’s histories and experimentations. Born in Dubai to Pittsburgh-native parents, she trained in London at the Royal Academy of Dance and in Houston and Philadelphia. Dancing with MCB for 10 seasons under founder Edward Villella, formerly a leading dancer at NYCB, she absorbed the speed, clarity and precision of Balanchine technique. Earlier, in Pennsylvania, she fell in love with Balanchine’s choreography by working on it with the French ballerina Violette Verdy, Villella’s colleague and one of Keller’s mentors. Keller remembers Verdy describing the circular movement rond de jamb in this appealing way: “Stir, stir the chocolate  fondu. It’s gooey.” A striking movement, frappé, was “sharp, sharp like cheddar cheese.”

Now in her first season with TMP, Keller challenges her ballet-trained body with new tasks. McIntyre’s rigorous choreography includes not only pointe work, but also weighty, grounded movement. Dancers are sometimes called upon to rotate their legs externally, as in ballet, but Keller now must also engage other parts of the body to work in a parallel stance. Additionally, Keller says, McIntyre “encourages us to be present and almost, in a way, vulnerable,” both in the studio and on stage. In rehearsal for Queen of the Goths (2007), loosely based on Titus Andronicus, McIntyre pushed Keller to investigate each moment and detail of choreography — “It has to mean something, it has to cost you something,” she recalls him saying about a series of gestures by her character, Tamora, who unwittingly eats a meat pie made from the remains of two of her slain sons.

MCB’s offering of Balanchine’s burlesque Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (1968), based on the 1936 musical On Your Toes, tells a lighter story. And Robbins’ elegant Dances at a Gathering (1969) depicts human relationships through the physical expression of Chopin’s music. Keller says that, like Robbins, McIntyre encourages his dancers to engage with one another on stage, drawing the audience into their world and stirring their imaginations.

McIntyre’s Pass, Away, commissioned by the Broward Center and premiering this weekend, and Arrantza (2010), join Queen of the Goths on the TMP program.

This is the deal: for $99, you choose one night in an orchestra seat to see TMP, at 7:30 p.m. on Friday or Saturday; one night day or night to see MCB, on Friday at 8:00 p.m., or Saturday and Sunday at either 2:00 or 8:00 p.m. The Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 S.W. Fifth Ave., Ft. Lauderdale; for tickets call 954-462-0222.

Photo: MCB’s “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue”; photo: Daniel Azoulay

This also appears with Miami New Times.

India Jazz Suites: The Fastest Feet in Rhythm pretty much spells out what will be going down Saturday at the South-Miami Dade Cultural Arts Center. The event is a high-speed hybrid of ancient Indian moves and contemporary tap, created by Kathak dance master Pandit Chitresh Das and celebrated tap dancer Jason Samuels Smith.

Many dancers talk of the energy in their work, but few understand it in the way Das does. The 69-year-old dancer’s pursuit of the sublime doesn’t stop with his deep devotion to Kathak, a classical Northern Indian dance form. He likes to mix things up, juxtaposing the rhythmic structures of his own tradition with others, opening up to improvisation, or as he calls it, a “conversation” between traditions.

Das’ partner in that conversation began his career at age 15 as understudy for Savion Glover in the Broadway production of Bring in ’Da Noise, Bring in ’Da Funk. Samuels Smith went on to win an American Choreography Award for a televised tribute to Gregory Hines, and founded Los Angeles’ first tap dance festival in 2003. He has tapped his way across prominent stages from London to Chicago, and has appeared as a guest performer on So You Think You Can Dance.

Das’ interest in other traditions began with a ritual fire ceremony six decades ago, marking the start of his training with guru Pandit Ram Narayan Misra, who was more interested in his student’s integrity than his dance technique. In the 18 years they worked together, Misra taught Das the two most important lines within Kathak dance: the sensuality of the Lucknow school and the fierce rhythm of the Jaipur school.

Das’ parents were celebrated dancers in the classical tradition. “It seemed there was never an end to the dancing at home,” he says. “It went on all day and all night. Much of it might have been considered ‘subversive,’ pro-Indian independence reworking of classical works.”

His parents’ dance school was among the most celebrated in Calcutta (now Kolkata), and their son was something of a prodigy. Das’ first public performance was with sitar genius Ravi Shankar.

“I grew up in a golden time,” Das says, referring to his apprenticeship as well as the promise of India in the 1950s. But by the 1970s, fewer Indians seemed interested in their own culture. “One needs to go out of one’s country to understand it,” his mother told him. And so, like so many other young people at the time, Das set out for Berkeley, Calif.

“Everything was going on, some of it wondrous,” he says. “Still, I was isolated from my own roots, my own environment, and when that happens, one recreates one’s own environment.”

Since then, he has recreated that environment all over the world. Today Das has dance schools in Kolkata, Mumbai, San Francisco, Boston and Toronto. He performed at Lincoln Center in New York in 1988 and has been featured in documentaries on PBS and the BBC. He also offers classes to the children of sex workers in Mumbai’s Red Light district and gives workshops at the Blind Opera of Kolkata.

His intention is to honor the instructions of his guru: “To live and to dance as though the [dancers’ ankle] bells, the students, the audience and even a stray chair have all become one.”

In India Jazz Suites, add Samuel Smith’s tapping feet to the sound of those bells. And, Das says, just as when particles collide, “what the audience will be witnessing is energy.”

This appeared in the Miami Herald, 4/16/13

The lovely weather down here these days, the vibrant cultural scene, the ethnically diverse food options, all those are reasons that have Alison Chase jumping for joy. It is pretty cold, by the way, in Maine, where she lives.

But more important than all that: the modern dance giant — she co-founded, oh, some little groups you may have heard of, like Pilobolus and Momix — is thrilled to be in South Florida this week to hold the world premiere of her work Red Weather, at the South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center (SMDCAC) on Saturday.

Red Weather is part of a four-piece show that Chase’s touring program, Alison Chase Performance (from her dance theater production company, Apogee Arts), will be performing in our area, where she and her dancers have also been sharing with the community by way of workshops.

“I am doing a whole week of outreach here, and one workshop was very exciting because it involved kids from the area and a senior citizens group, and so we did a transgenerational workshop,” says Chase from the SMDCAC facilities. “I am looking forward to working with local choreographers and dancers… I would like to come down and just do research, with the music and the restaurants. This is a really rich, wonderful, community here.”

The opportunity to teach in South Florida is a welcomed one for the choreographer, professor and 67-year-old mother of three who brought a highly kinetic style to dance, adding film, aerial performances (expect that in her South Miami-Dade show), and multidimensional storytelling to create a signature style.

“We don’t have such a dynamically diverse community,” continues Chase about how South Florida differs from her region. “We enjoy teaching people the process of invention, and encourage them to blend whatever kind of dance they do, whether it’s merengue or salsa, to approach it playfully, and to expand that vocabulary out.”

And expanding the vocabulary of dance is what St. Louis-born-and-raised Alison Chase has been doing most notably since October 1971 when, along with several colleagues at Darmouth College, what would become one of the world’s best known and most important contemporary dance companies, Pilobolus Dance Theater, took its first steps.

Chase’s life with Pilobolus abruptly and stunningly came to an end, however, in December 2005. Reports surfaced that Chase had been fired due to differences with the company’s board of directors, who wanted her to sign over ownership of her innovative works.

She refused.

Pilobolus, meanwhile, disputed her version of ownership rights in the media.

When asked about this episode today, Chase responds that she can’t comment on it. “Well, I have moved beyond. I have signed a gag order,” she says. “I am delighted to be doing what I’m doing.”

After the Pilobolus chapter, the winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship (1980), among many other awards, free-lanced, until she officially founded Apogee Arts in 2010.

“I realized that I passionately enjoy making dances, and if I had an ensemble that I could sort of be free to direct into new choreographic adventures, and teach them, I felt there would be great freedom in a small organization that’s not trapped by such a heavy, heaving touring schedule,” she explains. “And I’ve enjoyed doing it with a pacing and a phrasing that I can control and that it’s not overwhelmingly frenetic. I like to work slow.”

Slow, however, is definitely not an adjective to describe her work.

Alison Chase Performance at SMDCAC, 10950 SW 211 Street, Cutler Bay, Saturday, April 13, at 8:00 p.m. Tickets range from $10 to $35 (a select number of $5 Cultureshockmiami.com tickets are available for ages 13-22); www.smdcac.org; 786-573-5300; www.cultureshockmiami.com.

This article also appears with Miami New Times.

Mixed abilities dance first occurred to Karen Peterson in 1990. She received a phone call from a wheelchair bound woman who wanted a part in a ballet.

“My direction to her was to write about her physical memories, and that gave us the direction for our duet. She gave me incredible inspiration to do something I’d never done before. I was really bored as a choreographer and she gave me something to sink my teeth into,” says Peterson, a veteran dancer and choreographer. For the next 23 years, mixed abilities dance would be the foundation of her internationally known dance company, Karen Peterson and Dancers. “It’s a force and an energy that keeps going round and round,” she says.

Known as KPD for short, the company has featured about 35 choreographies and toured throughout Florida, the United States, Europe and the Americas. About half of the works use mixed ability dancers, which includes a range of formally trained students from New World School of the Arts and Florida International University, as well as a paraplegic, a quadriplegic, and a dancer with Spina Bifida and others. Among the company’s upcoming performances, it will hold its more extensive “23^rd season” concert on April 11 and 12, before heading to Belgrade in May.

On stage, Peterson’s dancers with disabilities are tightly woven with abled body dancers and are equally supportive to execute complex, professional caliber choreography. “It’s a particular art form that has developed along the way,” says Peterson, who has collaborated with the Miami String Project, among other entities, that she said helped attract new audiences. Her clever use of lighting, shadows, backdrops, and mixed media add another element of entertainment to the company’s performances./
Peterson talked to Artburst about the special qualities of mixed-abilities dance, her upcoming performance and how this art form has transforms lives.

What is the process of turning people with disabilities into dancers?

A: I use movements that work best on their bodies. Say there’s a dancer who can only move his right elbow and his head, so you of think of how many ways you can find that uses those body parts. You find common denominators as a group. These are simple tasks. It’s almost like working with a palette and meshing together certain colors.

Your company breaks the mold of traditional dance. Therefore, what is your idea of a dancer?

Someone with an open hearted, generous spirit of physicality that needs to be shared with others. Intimate, honest and willing to be flexible and patient and willing to be part of a creative process, where you don’t know where you’re going, but at the end of the line there will be something that’s waiting for me.

How do you convince a disabled person that they can actually perform as a dancer? And how have abled body dancers embraced the concept.

My experience is that it’s not for everyone. I don’t think you really need to sell the idea. I think dancers have decided that it’s something that they want to do. They understand my vision and my work and that they are part of the creative process. Both disabled and abled body dancers balance the other out 50 percent.

What type of impact has performing had on some of your dancers with disabilities?

On March 10, we had a performance with 190 students with learning disabilities from Miami middle and high schools. The kids really love it. They usually don’t get the opportunity to train with dance instructors and it’s a very supportive day. They all love to move and dance. Despite their learning disability, there was never a moment when they didn’t want to dance and express themselves.

From where do you draw inspiration to create dance pieces?

Some are driven by music. Some are driven by visual images such as animals, water and trees. But this particular concert (April 11, 12) follows a narrative of one man and two women drinking in a café and what can happen. The dancers range in age from 28 to 63, so there’s a wide-range of abilities and a wide-range of ages. That’s a great maturity and a great weight to the work.

What are some of the most memorable experiences that you’ve had with your dance company over the years?

I feel very lucky. I’ve met some beautiful people along the way. We had a performance in New York City in 2003 at a mixed-ability festival. My first teaching residency in Brazil, which was the first thing I did by myself out of the country. We were welcomed, accepted and embraced in their country. And in 2010, when I made my dancers jump from their wheelchairs into my pool. We video-taped them underwater and the footage was used as a backdrop to one of the performances.

Karen Peterson and Dancers Season of Dance With New Work, Thursday, April 11 at 8:00 p.m. and Friday, April 12 at 8:00 p.m., Miami-Dade County Auditorium On Stage Black Box, 2901 W. Flagler St., Miami; tickets $18, $13 students; www.karenpetersondancers.org.

Traditions are kept alive by constant change. The roots music of the 21^st century is being created as much with electric guitars, sequencers and laptops as with drums and flutes.

That’s one of the ideas behind The Rhythm Foundation’s Heineken TransAtlantic Festival, coming this weekend, which this year features as headliners the Argentine-Uruguayan electro-tango group Bajofondo and the Colombian electro-tropical Bomba Estéreo, as well as the duo Zuzuka Poderosa & Kush Arora, Miami’s own trio The Hongs, Krisp, Beat Machines, the neo-funk boogie big band Psychic Mirrors and DJ Mr Pauer.

“Simón [Mejía] started the group with the idea of mixing roots music and electronic music before I joined,” says Liliana “Li” Saumet, Bomba Estéreo singer and lyricist, speaking from the band´s bus on route to a show in San Francisco. Saumet was born in Santa Marta, on the Atlantic coast of Colombia, a place with deep African traditions. “It’s not that I bring the folklore to Bomba Estéreo, the idea was there. It’s just that when I sing, you can hear la costa because that’s what comes natural to me. That sound is what I grew up with.”

In fact, Saumet says her singing approach refers to that of the cantadoras, the troubadour women in Afro-Colombian culture who, in their singing, preserve and pass on the stories of their people. “They are my reference, especially La Niña Emilia [1932-1993],” says Saumet. “And they have a distinct way of singing, very deep but also without a musical training, and that’s what came out when I started singing. It’s the singing of my roots. That and rap are my main references.”

Now, in her work with Bomba Estéreo, Saumet might be also updating and keeping alive the cantadora tradition.

Bomba Estéreo was founded by Mejía, a visual artist turned full time bassist, programmer and producer, and released its first recording in 2006. It drew from traditional music, most obviously cumbia, but also DJ culture, electronic and hip hop. The result was both substantive and danceable, fun. Since then, the group became a hit at festivals — and SXSW and has just released Elegancia Tropical, its  third recording.

They are textbook headliners for the TransAtlantic Festival, which The Rhythm Foundation started in 2003 as a way to connect with new audiences as well as celebrate the traditional.

It was an “interesting time in Miami,” says Laura Quinlan, director of The Rhythm Foundation.  “It was the time of the Internet boom and new media and there were all these really cool people moving in from Latin America, interesting, creative people who were setting up companies, business and art galleries. It was a real revitalization in the city. But our audiences were not reflecting that. As an organization we were not connecting with this renaissance.

“And there was also this new sound I personally loved, which was the mix of electronica and World Music,” says Quinlan. “Now this sound has become kind of standard but I remember the first time I heard [the Tijuana-based] Nortec Collective, the birth of Latin-tronica, I couldn’t believe it. Now it’s not so shocking, you hear it in car commercials — but I still love it.”

Since its first edition, the TransAtlantic Festival has featured artists and groups such as Seu Jorge, DJ Da Lua, Bossacucanova, Chambao, Juana Molina, Ojos de Brujo, Aterciopelados, Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, Seun Kuti and Egypt 80, and Nortec Collective.

“When you are programming and running a cultural organization you have to keep your circle open, you have to stay open to new sounds, new collaborators, new partners or your impact in the community starts to shrink,” says Quinlan. “That openness has always been central to TransAtlantic.”

Meanwhile, Saumet sees the work, and success, of Bomba Estéreo as part of a larger picture.

“It’s something that’s happening not only in Colombia but México, Perú, Venezuela, Argentina, all throughout Latin America,” she says. “We are looking to our roots, to our culture not just rock and we coming to what is ours. And I think the perspective has changed too. We used to look North, to the Anglo world. Now I think the Anglo world is also looking at us.”

The 11th annual Heineken TransAtlantic Festival features Bajofondo, with an opening set by The Hongs, on Friday at 7:00 p.m. Bomba Estéreo, Zuzuka Poderosa & Kush Arora, and an opening set by Krisp, take the stage on Saturday at 7:00 p.m. At the North Beach Bandshell, 7275 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach; tickets cost $23 for each night, or $35 for the weekend (there will also be a launch and a wrap pert, free); 305-672-5202 ; transAtlanticfestival.com.

This preview also appears in the Miami New Times.

Choreographer and dancer Emily Johnson’s critically acclaimed work The Thank -you Bar was a Bessie-Award winner that placed her on the international stage. The piece explored ideas of displacement, longing, language, history and pre-conceived notions about native culture in Alaska. Now, Johnson is back with a second in this series, Niicugni, where she delves into how places and moments are vibrant mirrors that both reflect and project all that has come before and will follow.

Niicugni comes to Miami courtesy of Tigertail Productions this Friday and Saturday.

Johnson grew up in Alaska, before moving at the age of 18 to Minneapolis where she is now based. She is of Yup’ik descent and has strong emotional ties to the landscape of South Central Alaska and the Yukon delta. She was immersed in the family rituals of hunting and fishing, then smoking, drying, canning and freezing food. This experience of physically preparing one’s own meals informs some of the more obvious set pieces, namely the fish-skin lanterns that cover the stage.

Niicugni means “listen” in the Yup’ik language.  But in less literal terms the word is a entreaty to pay attention, to have cognizance of all that is around us. The work exists in layers of dance, live music, story telling and those fish-skin lanterns in a space occupied not just by the performers but the audience as well. It will be performed by Johnson and includes dancer Aretha Aoki, composer James Everest, violinist/electronic musician Bethany Lacktorin and lighting designer Heidi Eckwall.

En route to Miami from her starting point last week in Arizona, Johnson stopped at a roadside restaurant with wi-fi in Mississippi to answer some questions.

Referring to the title of the piece, Niicugni — in our current society there are so many demands placed on our attention. We have 24-hour news sources and streaming and so on. Yet it seems that even with the constant sharing of information, we only seem to know the most functional things about each other.  How do you address this?

I try to look at the world from the corners of my eyes, with an encompassing view, rather than a dead on, tunnel like search. This way of looking, of paying attention, makes me realize that I am within the context of what is around me.

This is what we need to see — that by not paying attention we harm everything, the world, ourselves, our relationships.

When the BP Deepwater Horizon was gushing oil into the gulf I stood at Minnehaha Creek in Minneapolis. It’s a creek that feeds into the Mississippi River, which of course, feeds into the gulf. I stood there and because of that creek, I felt immediately close to the horror of the oil spill. And because I could feel that connection, I had to do something. I got online; I found an organization I could volunteer for even from far away. I’m not saying I made a huge difference by myself, but it’s this kind of connection to place, events and people, that can create a collective change.

In your production notes you ask if, in the moment of a performance, the audience “recognizes the importance of everyone in the room.” It’s an interesting question in terms of the evolution on how we view and experience performance art. Why do you think it is important that we are aware of each other during a performance?  

The isolated, personally involved experience doesn’t just happen in theaters — it happens in grocery stores and on streets. Sometimes I will catch myself — I’ll come out of a store and realize that I didn’t actually notice anyone else in there! How could I walk past several people, have an exchange with someone at a cash register and still not fully acknowledge anyone? How disrespectful! That this happens in many theater-going experiences is absurd to me.

The inclusion of local people in this show is actually an essential element of Niicugni. We gather volunteers who work with me and then perform for a short moment during the piece. They sit in the audience and at pre-determined moments, come onto stage for usually simple, and I think beautiful, moments.

Unfortunately, in Miami …. I do know that [this] will be in a much smaller way.

Your 12-minute video on how to create fish-skin lanterns was fascinating.  Your personal and historical account of how “Salmon Brings Us Together” is worthy of its own spread in National Geographic. How is this part of the piece? 

There is the story of the fish, there is my history with fish and family, there are all these lanterns that were made by volunteers across the country; their time and effort embedded onstage. There are the processes Aretha and I go through and imagine as we dance and tell stories. There is the always-changing interaction with the audience.

There is such an integral tapestry of the outdoors and natural spaces in this work.   Is it hard to translate those natural wonders to a traditional indoor theater space, create that same sense of awe?

What I describe as “wondrous” is actually very routine: salmon migration, for example. I am always trying to create an experience for audiences and part of that experience is about where we are and what is outside of the theater walls. I do try to bring the outside in.

Can we see the wondrous routine of this? The cycle? Of work … of eating, of living, of dying? Isn’t this cycle (symbolic of all cycles) enough to make us all want to make the world a really beautiful place to live?

Emily Johnson/CatalystDance will perform Niicugni on Friday & Saturday, March 22 & 23, 8:30 pm, at the On-Stage Black Box at Miami-Dade County Auditorium, 2901 W. Flagler St., Miami, Tickets are $30 General Admission; $20 students and seniors; tigertail/org/events_niicugni.html.

A version of this preview first appeared in the Miami Herald, March 20.