Arts

Everyone knows that South Florida has a seedy underbelly. The American fascination with crime-sex-and-violence-laden stories about South Florida has been going strong for quite some time, particularly on the silver screen.

The 2013 Miami Performance International Festival obliterates the line between viewers and mid-career and emerging artists from Miami and around the world. In its second year, the festival, curated by Charo Oquet, takes place in Miami’s Design District and the Miami Beach Botanical Garden and runs through the month of June.

Slow Burn Theatre Compnay has grown by leaps and bounds in just a few short years.  As they get ready for their summer musical presentation The Wedding Singer, Co-Artistic Directors Matthew Korinko and Patrick Fitzwater talk about the history of Slow Burn and what it takes to run a successful company.

Have you seen that now classic commercial where a bunch of cowboys get all freaked out about a salsa that is produced in New York City?!

Egyptian Lover, a 49-year-old electronic musician born Greg Broussard, is a rare West Coast artist whose imprint looms large on the Miami underground music world.

In the ‘80s, when he first emerged from the fringes of the Los Angeles breakdancing scene, there was something of a bicoastal rivalry among similarly minded producers.

The Blog Roundup is a weekly look at noteworthy South Florida blogs and posts:

Rubio's Immigration Reform Amendment Flops

Sen. Marco Rubio's amendment  to the immigration reform bill, which mandates English proficiency for those seeking citizenship, is getting attacked from all sides, even his conservative base.

Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) was perhaps the most influential playwright of the twentieth century.

During the 1940s and 1950s, his work took the American theater by storm, achieving enormous popular success and the sort of feverish criticism only accorded writers of groundbreaking genius.

His best-known works include A Streetcar Named Desire, whose 1947 Broadway production launched the careers of Marlon Brando and Jessica Tandy, and the 1955 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Video as an art form has come a long way. Although artists started seriously working with the medium at least a half century ago (some will pinpoint Nam June Paik’s German exhibition in 1963 as its official arrival on the scene), it remained somewhat the stepchild, not getting a lot of respect until the last couple decades. And in Miami, video art – good video art – was late in taking hold with local artists and in shows. That’s changed dramatically in recent years, and yet there have been few outlets dedicated to highlighting the form.

To many serious musicians, reality TV singing competitions — American Idol and all the variants trailing in its wake — don't rank highly.

And Miami's Karina Iglesias considered herself very much a serious artist, gigging around town since 2002 with as many as eight different bands, hustling both the covers and original circuits to support herself as a professional musician.

By night, she performed with as few as two and as many as 20 people backing her up, lighting up both clubs and corporate events with her bold, soulful voice.

Caroline Breder-Watts and Scott Eyman discuss the work of Jerry Goldsmith, one of the most prolific and influential film composers of the 20th Century.  To hear the complete conversation, visit artsradionetwork.com.