Sleepless Night Top Picks

Project Bandaloop’s Bound(less) with the Dana Leong Trio

 

By Jordan Levin | jlevin@miamiherald.com11/2/2011

To me, the most exciting performances at Sleepless Night are the kind you can’t see elsewhere - whether because they’re by artists from outside Miami making a rare (or only) visit here, or because the performance is unique to this event, interactive and/or created for this artistic adventure. This is a night to roam and experience as much as possible, rather than sit in a theater for a couple of hours. I’m attracted to works with an idea behind them, rather than those done for spectacle’s sake. But unexpected fun in tune with a balmy night is good too. With all that in mind here are my picks for some of the dreamiest events to stay up for. (In alphabetical order.)
 
Antonio Carmona and Friends – 9pm, Classical South Florida Main Stage, Ocean Drive between 8th and 9th Streets.
The former frontman for Ketama, a fabulous Spanish flamenco-fusion group, strikes out with a solo project.

 
Carpetbag Brigade – 7 & 10 pm on Collins Park Lawn, 2100 Collins Ave.
This San Francisco based fantastical theater troupe (fresh off a tour of Colombia) creates surreal, stilt-dancing imagery; they present their latest piece, Calling, which imagines a sentient ocean.

 
Dance Now! in Miami’s In-Somnia – 7:15pm, Classical South Florida Main Stage, Ocean Drive between 8th and 9th Streets.
You could also break my theater rule for this longtime Miami company and their gorgeous dancers in their made-for-Sleepless Night work about the disturbed consciousness that results from not sleeping. (So that explains South Beach).

 
Intention Intervention – Midnight, Exostage at Soundscape at the New World Symphony, 500 17th St..
The latest invention from the endlessly and genuinely (sexually, politically, conceptually) provocative Octavio Campos is a combination film and performance featuring the sublime Natasha Tsakos, the Voices United chorus, and 108 yoga artists. Intention kicks off Campos’ Please Don’t Hate Me! Campaign against intolerance and for activism in South Florida.

 
Livio Tragtenberg’s The Cabinet of Dr. Strange – 6pm - midnight, Lincoln Road and Washington Ave.
Holed up in a cage, this endlessly inventive Brazilian composer will transform whatever you or anyone else screams and whispers into the microphone in his creative enclosure. Here are your instructions: "Please feed the composer with images and sounds. The composer is an extinct animal. Come and share your sound problems with Dr. Strange. Dr. Strange will solve your sound problems."

Magnum Band & Ayabonmbe -  8pm to 10 pm
Battle of the Timba Bands with Timbalive and Tiempo Libre - 10:30pm to 12:30 am; Magic City Casino Stage, Miami Beach Way at 21st St.
For those of you who simply want to get down under Caribbean stars, enjoy a four-hour beat fest with two of Miami’s best Haitian music ensembles (check amazing Magnum guitarist Dadou Pasquet), and two of our city’s most incendiary (in the musical sense) Cuban groups.

MarchFourth Marching Band – 10 p.m., marching from 6th to 8th Street along Ocean Drive; 10:30pm, Classical South Florida Main Stage.
I love a parade! Especially a Brazilian batucada booming, N’awlins Second Line funkin, ruffled booty-shaking Cabaret satiric take on classic marching bands parade.

 
Project Bandaloop’s Bound(less) with the Dana Leong Trio – 10:45 pm, Exostage at Soundscape at the New World Symphony, 500 17th St.
Who wants to dance on the floor? Not Project Bandaloop, which delights in cavorting on mountainsides, bridges, theater walls and other perpendicular spaces – such as the wall of the NWS.

 
Sketchy Miami - 6pm - Midnight, Art Center/South Florida, 800, 810 & 924 Lincoln Road.
Want a portrait to hang over your fireplace (or air conditioning unit) and bequeath to your offspring? Head to Sketchy Miami, where New World School of the Arts students and Art Center artists will draw your unique self, part of their project to sketch a portrait of every single person in Miami. Are you going to be left out?

 
Tim Miller’s Lay of the Land - 10 pm, Colony Theater, 1040 Lincoln Road.
Break my advice about sitting in a theater for Tim Miller, who’s been charming and challenging audiences since the early 80’s with performance pieces on gay identity and the twisted American psyche.

Speak up!