September 11, 2008 by info.

(Originally published on MOLI 5/1/8)

I love my FUPA.

FUPA, in case you’re not up on the latest teen lingo, stands for Fat Upper Pubic (or Pussy) Area. It’s a word my now 17-year-old daughter taught me a couple years ago, right at the same time she gave me a boy-beater tank top with another contemporary acronym — MILF — on it. MILF, of course, stands for Mother I’d Like to Fuck. The two terms, one derogatory and one complimentary, are linked not merely because I learned them at the same time, but because many mothers battle their FUPA in order to maintain fuckability. I’m glad Kenda gave me a MILF tee — I believe the occasion was Mother’s Day, so it was a pretty rockin’ gift from a stepdaughter — and not one saying FUPA. But I am not ashamed of the fact that since I had a baby, my body hasn’t been the same. And yet, apparently, according to this very tough critic, I’m a MILF.

I bring all this up because, thanks in part to the celebrity mom boom and the media’s mania over it, new mothers’ bodies are becoming a bit of a cultural obsession. One tabloid cover I recently saw in a supermarket — I won’t buy these damn things — had the gall to rate which stars had best recovered their figures since giving birth. Equally heinously, a Miami plastic surgeon (of course) has written a children’s book to help kids understand why their mommies are covered in bruises and bandages after having operations to correct “the ravages of pregnancy.” I kid you not. (Thanks to The Miami Herald’s Howard Cohen for reporting on My Beautiful Mommy.)

I loved being pregnant. I suppose it was like being ravaged — but then, I kind of like being ravaged too. I’ve always been a bit of a skinny Minnie, and I relished the transformation into curves. In the Herald story, author Dr. Michael Salzhauer complains of sagging breasts and stretched skin. Maybe I’m an exception, but my boobs are bigger and better than ever at age 43 (just ask my husband). And stretched skin is a small price to pay for having my son wake up this morning, look at me with a big sleepy smile, and say, “I love you Mom.”

You, reader living in some hip urbane boho area, might assume My Beautiful Mommy is a laughable tome destined for dustbins. But I can tell you, here in Miami, where the beauty myth holds full sway, it has a captive audience. Many are the mothers at my son’s school who have comically inflated lips and breasts — thus disfiguring their resemblance to their darling children. I suspect some are familiar with Dr. Salzhauer himself.

Even fellow alt-parenting author Erika Schickel has chronicled her own battle with the bulge, fighting her “pussy belly,” as she calls it, with a girdle in a funny, poignant scene in her book You’re Not the Boss of Me: Adventures of a Modern Mom.

Now, I’m an advocate of fighting the notion that motherhood equals frump. That’s part of the premise of my book Mamarama: A Memoir of Sex, Kids and Rock’n'Roll. But I’m sick of the pressure on moms to be hot, hip, and wasp-waisted, like the caricature on the cover of Salzhauer’s book. Instead of applying teenaged beauty standards to grown women, we need to start fetishing mature bodies. Saggy breasts rock. “Look at these, my child-bearing hips.” FUPAs are fuckable. Put it on a T-shirt.

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September 11, 2008 by info.

(Originally published on MOLI 4/29/8)

“What’cha listening to these days?” It’s the music buff’s conversation opener, a bid to share discoveries, compare notes – maybe show off. So in case you were wondering, here are three discs that recently crossed my CD player – and have stayed there.

Santogold, Santogold (Downtown): There’s something about females singing obliquely over angular, rhythmic tracks that makes me want to jump up and down. The debut album by Brooklyn toaster/singer Santi White (pictured) and songwriter John Hill mixes ’80s empower pop with ’00s dancehall: It’s Missing Persons meets M.I.A., complete with clap tracks and weird synth effects. Media from Rolling Stone to Interview have been salivating over tracks like “LES Artistes” since they first hit the Internet last year. Santogold finally arrives in stores today.

Macaque, Chinatown EP: Another fem-punk New York new wave outfit, Macaque warble like Bjork and cavort like the Brazilian Girls. Evers’s vocals are seemingly cotton-candy light, but pack a not-so-hidden bite, as she taunts a “Big Man:” “I can’t wait to knock you down.” Chris Hart’s beats are deliriously Garageband simple – you’ll wish you’d thought of them first. But Macaque did.

Various artists, Independent Music for Independent Coffee Drinkers (sonaBLAST!): My colleague Wendy Case would probably call this collection of mellow coffeehouse anthems chirp rock. But it’s really good chirp rock. In a compilation of largely unknown folk singers, you’d expect to find several bad beans – but the quality control here is excellent. Mark Geary (who used to be my favorite New York bartender back when I called Irish pub the Scratcher my living room) is at his Nick Drake loveliest on two tracks, “Here’s to You” and “Obi’s Chair.” Charlotte Kendrick is an endearing Luddite on “I Get Stupid.” The oddball winner of the collection is “Violet Morning,” in which Jamie Barnes sings with endearing, over-the-top sincerity and compassion about the day R.E.M. drummer Bill Berry collapsed from a brain aneurysm. I’d say these laidback tunes are more for the herbal tea than the espresso crowd – or maybe they’re for slow-grind aficionados (sorry, can’t stop the coffee puns).

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September 11, 2008 by info.

(Originally published on MOLI 4/24/8)

The Cesar Pelli-designed Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts is a tumbling marble reef overlooking Miami’s Biscayne Bay. Since it opened in 2006, the publicly and privately funded venue has struggled to attract audiences to a downtown known for its seediness and crime, and to meet its operating costs. In the last year — already in its short history — it has gone through massive changes, including a name switch (from the Carnival Center, when banker Adrienne Arsht outgifted the cruise line) and new director. Under Lawrence Wilker, the center seems to be making great strides forward.

Unfortunately, Tuesday night, I had the kind of terrifying, mystifying, criminal experience that keeps people away from this part of town.

The evening started magnificently. After a dinner at Michael’s Genuine Food & Drinks — the kind of meal that Frank Bruni recently raved about, when he picked Michael’s as the fourth best new restaurant in the country — Mom and I went to see the 25th anniversary edition of Forbidden Broadway at the center’s Studio Theater. It was the first time this hilarious and sometimes quite hard-hitting satire of musicals has played South Florida. Created and written by the witty Gerard Alessandrini, Forbidden Broadway is a show for people who hate to love and love to hate the theater. Gina Kreiezmar is a brilliant mimic — of Liza Minnelli, Sarah Brightman, Patti LuPone, Ethel Merman, etc. — and quite a good singer. I was all set to write a nice little review.

Then we walked out to the PAC parking lot to find out my car had been stolen.

I’ll try to make this long story short: After calling 911, it turns out my PT Cruiser had been towed at the request of the American Parking Company, the operators of PAC lot F. After a very stressful couple of hours, of dealing with police and PAC security and Galactic Towing and American Parking, my husband had to pick us up and take us to the tow lot in Liberty City — not a part of town you want to take your mom, who’s in from out of town late at night — and pay $101 to get my vehicle back.

Now, I know tow company scams are rife in big cities. But this one is particularly heinous. My car was not illegally parked. I was in a designated Arsht Center lot, as you can see on this map. Dozens of other patrons parked there that night. It’s one of the lots Wilker is referring to when he tells the press there is plenty of parking around the center. The lot is owned by the Florida Grand Opera, one of the center’s resident companies. The tow truck pulled up to take more cars when I was on the phone with the police, but at that point, the show was over, and the other patrons managed to get away without being robbed.

After I filed off an angry email to the Arsht Center’s publicist Wednesday, Larry Wilker called me to apologize for this incident. He said he was “angry and mortified and embarrassed.” FGO COO Mark B. Rosenblum also emailed me, saying he has “asked American Parking to stop the current towing policy. We will be reviewing all policies and procedures, and making adjustments as necessary.” They are also reimbursing my $101.

That’s great; I appreciate it. I doubt the center or the FGO is a direct part of this towing scam (although it does seem to me that towing a few cars is a way American Parking can make money on what would otherwise be a slow night, and FGO does presumably profit from its financial relationship with American Parking). But this is just the kind of thing that’s going to keep people away from downtown. Other patrons saw what happened to us. Word gets out — um, I am a journalist. Wilker told me there had been one other incident. That he knows of.

The other day, I blogged about the superiority of the cultural nightlife on the west side of the Dade County causeways. I stand by what I say. But I’m also once burned.

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September 11, 2008 by info.

(Originally published on MOLI 4/23/8)

It’s no secret that the South Beach nightlife scene long ago ceased to be a playground for the kind of off-kilter, bohemian individuals who make nightclubbing a blast. In fact, it’s more like a cesspool of overpriced clubs playing bad trance and full of narcissistic, superficial airheads who get by on looks and/or money rather than talent or brains.

The way in which SoBe clubs have become killing grounds for tourists and suckers was made abundantly clear in a Sunday story in The Miami Herald (full disclosure: I am a former Herald staff critic and still contribute to the paper and its associated websites). Reporter Lydia Martin details the costs and cachet of buying into bottle service, and thus VIP treatment, at the clubs. She talks to such partiers as Romy Grantley, a 39-year-old financial trader who says he spends $3000 every Friday at Set. Martin is a genius at getting people to say things that lay bare the weird culture of Miami; a couple years ago she quoted literary entrepreneur Mitchell Kaplan saying, “We have the image that everybody here has fake boobs. Well, some people with fake boobs are very intellectual.”

The winner in this story comes from party promoter Tommy Pooch: ”If we made you buy four bottles, and you’re only four people, you can bet we didn’t want you there. You’re probably ugly. We were hoping you would just leave. But you were so desperate to get in, you agreed to the four bottles, and now we’re stuck with you.”

This, of course, explains why South Beach clubs are full of ugly rich people and desperate model wannabes who are essentially, and often literally, paid to be there. I suppose if you’re one of those types, they’re a great place to hang. But
Word to the people like Grantley, who brag about buying their popularity each weekend: That kind of club scene is over. You can see T-shirts in South Beach with the letters VIP circled with a slash through them. There are club nights, even at such once star-obsessed Beach venues as Tantra, that brag that they are celebrity-free. Economic times have changed, people hate Republicans, and little democratic dive venues are where it’s at.

The infamous SoBe scene is not only over; it’s dangerous. Martin’s article was prompted by a recent episode at behemoth venue Mansion where clubgoers were allegedly beaten by bouncers after they protested the size of their bar tab. Mansion officials deny the allegations but the patrons have sued and eight bouncers have been arrested for battery. You can see a video of the incident here.

Meanwhile, the kind of DIY fashionistas, art-school kids, trannies, budding MCs, etc., at the heart of any city’s cool club scene – not to mention most of the rest of Miami — long ago decided to stay on the west side of the causeways. In neighborhoods like Wynwood, Lemon City, Downtown, and the Design District, there’s a vibrant mix of singer/songwriters, indie clubs, cool record stores, world-renowned galleries, and hip restaurants. Places like Sweat Records, Churchill’s, 190, Transit Lounge, etc., don’t pull that velvet-rope stuff. Pay your admission (if there is one, it’s probably dirt cheap), and enjoy some good local music. Ugly people welcome.

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September 11, 2008 by info.

(Originally published on MOLI 4/17/8)

There are two classic mistakes critics, particularly pop music critics, make: 1. Hating something just because it’s popular, or 2. Liking something just because it’s popular. On Tuesday’s Soundcheck Smackdown on WNYC radio, I was set up as the representative of the former position, while Slate critic Jody Rosen repped the latter. The topic of debate was “Mariah Carey: Bimbo or Brilliant?” We were somewhat role playing (or at least I was. I don’t know; maybe Jody really does think Carey is in a league with John Coltrane and Led Zeppelin). It was fun.

I didn’t and wouldn’t call Mirage (her high-school nickname) a bimbo; in an act of feminist reversal I learned from Ann Powers, I only call guys bimbos. I don’t think Carey’s stupid: She strategically married early in her career, has wisely followed the winds of pop change, and got loads of money from a record label for whom she only had to deliver one record. She’s always been involved in her own songwriting and musical direction; she’s not a puppet (though she does like to play the victim). And yes, I do envy her ability to hit a lot of notes I can only dream of.

But skill is not the same as talent. Carey has an impressive vocal range and a somewhat superhuman ability to pack countless notes into one syllable, yet I don’t think she’s a great singer. She’s not inventive, she’s showoffy, she coos, she lacks soul. Rosen compared her to John Bonham and Coltrane, but to me, she’s like Joe Satriani, who can pick the shit out of a guitar, but it still sounds like noodling to me.

That said, I don’t hate her. That would be too easy. Two things I will say for Mariah for sure: 1. She’s a survivor. Her career has lasted 18 years, and she just passed Elvis to have the second-most number-one singles in music history (the Beatles are number one). 2. She invokes passion. People — regular people, not just critics — love her or hate her. You can see that in the comments at the Soundcheck site, some of which are a lot smarter than anything Jody and I said. I once reviewed a Mariah concert, and it provoked the second greatest amount of hate mail I’ve received in my career, thank you very much. (My Chemical Romance fans beat her out some tenfold, however).

So what do you think: Mariah Carey, brilliant or, um, overrated?

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September 11, 2008 by info.

(Originally published on MOLI 4/15/8)

Is the Gossip a dream? Watching the video for “Standing in the Way of Control,” the band’s ’06 club and UK hit that is featured on Gossip – Live in Liverpool, it’s hard to believe that a major label is promoting this concert album and DVD (Columbia’s Music With a Twist imprint releases Liverpool today). Or that the self-defined radical feminist band is playing on Late Show with David Letterman tomorrow night (April 16). And that in the UK, where proudly overweight singer Beth Ditto has been an unlikely, sometimes naked music-tabloid cover girl, the members are already rock stars. Even MTV is in on the action (the band’s part of the network’s “52/52” campaign). Is the revolution being televised?

Like the album, the “Standing” video (you can watch it in the View player) is a resolutely raw-power document. Singing in a throaty blues howl that actually merits the usual Janis Joplin comparisons, Ditto wears a shiny skin-tight minidress; in a recent Bust magazine interview, she talked about how she purposely wears exactly what fat girls are told they’re not supposed to. Token guy Brace Paine manages to play bass, lead, and rhythm guitar on one instrument, while drummer Hannah Blilie is the siren of the snare.

Back in the heyday of what Bikini Kill called Revolution Girl Style, I’d have been moshing with a pack of other tattooed women in some tiny Lower East Side anarchist space to a band like this. That was some 15 years ago, back before Gossip expressly moved from Arkansas to Olympia, Washington, to hook up with Riot Grrrls. Of course, even back then, major labels were dying to sign Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney; corporations like to buy into rebellion. The politicized musicians stuck with indies – and ultimately self-destructed (BK a lot quicker than SK).

It would be ridiculous to call the Gossip a sell-out. The band is scarcely trying to hide who it is; Music With a Twist is a label for gays and lesbians. In press releases, interviews, lyrics, everywhere, the band wears its politics on its sleeves. “This is for the faggots,” Ditto shouts before “Yr Mangled Heart” on Liverpool. (Later, she dedicates her cover of Aaliyah’s ‘98 pop hit “Are You That Somebody” to that tragically short-lived R&B star.)

As much as the Gossip’s success makes me giddy with surprise and delight, it doesn’t mean the revolution is won. In some ways, they make it harder for their kin. Any rock conservative can now counter an argument that so-and-so’s career has been waylaid by homophobia, misogyny, fat prejudice, or the feminist backlash by saying, “Well, that didn’t stop the Gossip!”

But like a precision instrument led by a diamond-hard drill bit, Ditto et al are an unstoppable force. They’re that good. When there’s a band as mediocre as a dozen popular boy bands – or surgically altered pop tarts – and fronted by a big, fat, loud, strident, bull dyke that gets its MTV spotlight, then I’ll believe the revolution has been won.

Until then, somebody pinch me.

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September 11, 2008 by info.

(Originally published on MOLI 4/10/8)

You know when you have an idea of what you’re looking for in a vacation spot, but you’re not sure where to find it? You drive and drive, and instead of a pristine fishing village and quaint inn, you keep passing the same old chain stores: Target, Best Buy, Wal-Mart. You start to wonder if you’ve fallen for some vintage postcard image that condos wiped out a couple decades ago (ain’t that America!), and if you’ll be camping at a KOA after all.

Then at the end of another one of those miles-long bridges that stitch together this oceanic region, there it is: a riverfront lined with 19th-century clapboard warehouses and fishing boats. I’m talking real, working fishing boats with nets and pulleys and crates that haul in shrimp and oysters – not white and chrome outfitters who charge $200 a day to take tourists out to slaughter some gorgeous game fish. A couple blocks past the end of the bridge, there’s a main street with broad sidewalks and diversion-filled cross streets. Within spitting distance of each other, there’s an independent book store, a handmade chocolates store, a shop selling nautical bric-brac that spills out onto the yard, and an internet café called Café Con Leche with Venezuelan specialties.

Perched where river meets sea just around the bend in Florida’s panhandle, Apalachicola is a gem of a town. No, in honor of the oysters that are plucked from the Gulf of Mexico here, and whose shells fall off a conveyor belt into a giant seagull-surrounded pile down the street from the nautical store, let’s call it a pearl. My husband, son, and I made a last-minute decision to drive around Florida for Cole’s spring break at the end of March. We had an ultimate destination – Bud’s aunt and uncle in Crestview, which is about as far from Miami (some 600 miles) as you can get and still be in the Sunshine State; in fact, we ventured into Alabama for one afternoon idyll. In between, we were winging it. We figured drive a few hours, find a place, stay a night, check it out.

Matlacha, a strip of road connecting the mainland to Pine Island, is a great beach-boho village amid the overpriced development of the Naples and Fort Myers area. The charming Bridge Water Inn is built on a deck, so water literally laps under the rooms – but we’ve stayed there before, so it wasn’t a discovery. The next day, we were impressed by the rescued animals (my type of place!) at Homosassa Springs State Park – but the area was packed with families on spring break.

We thought we’d stop earlier the third day, but instead we kept driving, because nowhere seemed “right” — though the scenery was improving. After Crystal River, we’d finally escaped the strip mall sprawl. We were driving on two lanes down Florida’s back country, over the slow-moving Suwanee River, past sweet-smelling orange orchards, through palmetto-filled swamps, to the white sands of the Gulf of Mexico.

My friend Hunter had tipped me off about Apalachicola, but I was maintaining a healthy skepticism until proven otherwise. We’d eaten a gas-station nonlunch and I was hungry and cranky by the time we reached the river and sunset was approaching. Along the way, we’d seen a lot of beachfront being replaced by blocks of cookie-cutter condos, and I was bracing for another gentrified, touristified town, where actual industry had been replaced by Ye Olde Shoppes. From that first bridge glimpse, we could tell Apalachicola is the real deal.

Yes, one of those riverfront warehouses has been converted into a hotel and restaurants. But the Apalichicola River Inn is a charming and unpretentious place. The lobby doubles as a liquor store, so sweaty locals pedal up on bikes for their daily fifth as you check in. The rooms all have gorgeous views of the river. On the second floor, you get your own private balcony. It was our first real mattress in a couple nights, and there was a cooling ceiling fan and rattan furniture. There are two adjacent restaurants: upscale Caroline’s and the legendary Boss Oyster, whose motto is “Shut up and shuck.” We ate at the latter and it was divine. The oysters are (obviously) very fresh and come topped with all kinds of things; we chose Oyster Bienville, which had blue crab, sherry and Monterey cheese. Bud and I have a thing for hominy, so we had to have the grand grits, which were served in a cream sauce with chunks of ham and jumbo shrimp. The grilled bay scallops were delicate and tasty. We enjoyed all this while sitting on the river, watching the boats come in from a hard day of fishing and the gulls trying to scavenge.

The inn is handily located beween the oyster shell pile and the nautical store. We managed not to invest in some little wooden shrimp boats – which we regret. At Downtown Books, a cozy store focusing on local authors, I bought a copy of The Yearling, the classic novel set in the old Florida landscape through which we had just driven. The clincher, though, were the chocolates. I can’t tell you the name of the store, because the chocolatier is a retired man who told me he just does this for fun, not for fame, and he doesn’t make business cards, or stickers, or anything with a logo. He opens and closes when he feels like it and doesn’t take credit cards. He does make dozens of types of creamy fudges, truffles, turtles, etc.

Especially for Florida, Apalachicola is an old town; in fact, Dr. John Gorrie invented the basis for air conditioning (and refrigeration) here in 1849, essentially enabling the settling of the state. There are beautiful Victorians near the water – many of them for sale. Go inland for a few blocks, and you’ll quickly see that this is also a working-class, even a poor, town. Unlike so many quaint seaside villages, it hasn’t all been gussied up for tourists. Which is how this tourist likes ‘em.

Finally, of course, there are the beaches. The panhandle is famous for its soft white sand and the Gulf of Mexico is gentle and blue (when there are no hurricanes, of course). St. George Island, with its state park, is just a few miles away.

A heavy fog denied us a sunrise over the river the next morning and sparkling sea views as we left. But you know, you can’t have everything.

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September 11, 2008 by info.

(Originally published on MOLI 4/8/8)

A swing set looms large in the front view. In the background stands the quintessential one-room shack – an icon of Southern rural poverty. But the emphasis in this painting by Toby Hollinghead, with its bright colors and children running to play, is on joy. It’s evident in the hand-painted title across the bottom: A Brand New Swang Set.

“They abandoned the old tire swing, they moved up in the world!” the artist explains over the phone from Opp, Alabama, where she lives and runs her Grab Bag Gallery. “I grew up with tire swings, and they don’t have them much anymore.”

Hollinghead has had what some might call a hard life: Blinded in one eye at age 2, picking cotton alongside her mother, living off welfare and the land as a child. But like the 19th century impressionists’ work her mostly rural images recall, her paintings are about the light. Often, as in Rapture Circle, pictured here and available at the Marcia Weber Gallery in Montgomery, it’s a heavenly light. Or else it’s just the infatigable sun of the Deep South, where Hollinghead has lived her whole life.

Born in 1953, Hollinghead didn’t start painting until 1998. Now she’s a collected folk artist, in the tradition of Howard Finster or Laura Levine — although given the importance of God in many of these artists’ works, it would perhaps be more accurate to call them spiritual or gospel painters, rather than the somewhat patronizing f-word. It’s easy to romanticize these glimpses of a life so removed from the ones we live in modern cities like Miami, what with their crude lines and creative spellings (in Florala, it’s definitely pronounced “swang”) – and hard not to like their frank colors. Besides, is it so distant? I grew up in Beloit, Wisconsin, and relished the tire swing we had hanging from the oak tree in our backyard. As I reminisced with Hollinghead, who has a lilting, musical voice, you could twist it up then let it go and spin till your insides were pushing against your glottis.

I came across A Brand New Swang Set at Strickland’s Fine Art Gallery in Florala, a small, picturesque lake town that, as its name implies, strides the Florida and Alabama border, and where you can get lots of antique kitchenware and some excellent barbecue. I didn’t make it down the road to Opp (call it a missed opportunity, ba-dum dum). But I will next time I’m in this area. And I’ll try to come on Sunday, so I can hear the painter sing and play guitar at the Opp Church of God.

You can read more about Toby and see some of her paintings at the Marcia Weber website.

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September 11, 2008 by info.

(Originally published on MOLI 4/3/8)

Everyone knows the importance of pitch to singing, but rarely do people talk about the need for rhythm. A skilled drummer can make a good singer great; as the song says, it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.

Which is why I’m excited about the news that Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson has coproduced Lay It Down, the upcoming album by Al Green. ?uestlove, drummer for Philadelphia hip-hop group the Roots, is a musical connoisseur who has worked with Common, Erykah Badu, Fiona Apple, Blackalicious, and a ton more, constantly proving – John Henry like – that man can outdrill machine. Green, of course, is just one of the world’s greatest living singers, the man whose falsetto defines soul sensitivity.

I’ve seen Green perform a couple times, and he can hit those high notes like swatting a fly. Of course, that also means it’s easy for him to phone it in. Perhaps ?uestlove can do for Green what Rick Rubin did for Johnny Cash: Find new depths in a legend. With guests John Legend, Corinne Bailey Rae, and Anthony Hamilton, it’s old school meets new school time.

Admittedly, those neosoul singers can wax a little milquetoasty. But I’m trusting ?uestlove and coproducer keyboardist James Poyser – another musician with heavy-duty credentials (Badu, Lauryn Hill, Jill Scott)– to make this more than just a nostalgia act with modern beats. Other players on Lay It Down include the Dap-King Horns (Sharon Jones, Amy Winehouse), guitarist Chalmers “Spanky” Alford (Mighty Clouds of Joy, Joss Stone), and bassist Adam Blackstone (Jill Scott, DJ Jazzy Jeff). Fuck sample clearances.

Lay It Down will be released May 27 by Blue Note. For a hint of how incredibly groovalicious this collaboration sounds, check out the promotional video.

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September 11, 2008 by info.

(Originally published on MOLI 3/29/8)

A new ballet with music by Elvis Costello, choreography by Twyla Tharp, and costumes by Isaac Mizrahi would be big news in any town. For Miami, the world premiere of Nightspot on March 28 was an historic event. The breathless, vivid, Romantic (with a capital R) dance is the first major commission by the Miami City Ballet, a 22-year-old company that has been increasingly catching the dance community’s eye. Opening night, drawing a mass of tuxedoed swells and South Florida glitterati, was also a momentous occasion for the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, now in its second year and under new management with a new name. Nightspot was a world-class performance – was there any more important dance event on the globe that night? – that, with its infusion of multiple Latin and club beats, moves, and styles, was also very Miami. It was a blast even for the ballet skeptics who were there just to see what Elvis was up to.

Following three couples as they dance and flirt their way through the nightlife, Nightspot is sort of a modern-day West Side Story (with no words). There’s forbidden romance, betrayal, good girls and bad girls, and a climactic fight – though in Nightspot, it’s between two men, not gangs. The fight scene draws heavily on Brazilian capoeira (as well as American break-dancing). It seems like the creators spent some time in Miami clubs, where salsa, bboying, and house music frequently rub elbows, as well as studying up on Latin styles: There’s mambo, tango, and boogaloo. The snaking bass lines Costello has loved so well since “Watching the Detectives” fit in well here. His moody jazz studies and experiences with classical music also came in handy. There were nine players on stage and 35 in the pit, from congos to clarinet to strings.

Perhaps most exciting for Miami was how spectacularly its dancers performed. Setting Nightspot in club land was a stroke of genius, allowing Tharp to accentuate the narcissism and abandonment of young dancers. At one point, Jennifer Carlynn Kronenberg duets with a long piece of scarlet fabric – a red carpet? – and a (literally) supportive entourage. This is only the second time I’ve seen MCB, but Miami Herald dance critic Jordan Levin writes that many of the moves seemed created for these precise bodies. Jeremy Cox grounds his kicks in a friendly smile. Isanusi Garcia-Rodriguez shook his body with Afro-Cuban exuberance rather than ballet’s usual restraint. Mizrahi’s purple and red costumes, mixing flamenco, club, and street styles, echoed the giant hibiscus flowers in the stage curtain, which is part of the Arsht Center’s collection of original art.

Costello, Tharp, and Mizrahi were all there opening night, as were photographer Bruce Weber, producer Sebastian Krys, and conductor Michael Tilson-Thomas. Outside, the subtropical air throbbed to the electronic sounds of the Ultra Music Festival, just blocks away. Across Biscayne Boulevard, at the PAC’s other theater, the Cleveland Orchestra was premiering an evening of Russian works. Parking and traffic were the infrastructural headache caused by this throbbing success. But what city doesn’t have those issues?

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