Miro Dance Theatre: Self-Portrait. As an expatriate Philadelphian, I can vouch for the splendiferousness of the two Philly artists who make up Miro: the wonderfully idiosyncratic dancer/choreographer Amanda Miller, an alum of Pennsylvania Ballet, and the award-winning videographer Tobin Rothlein, whose work with groups like Rennie Harris PureMovement has opened up new possibilities for the marriage of dance and video. Self-Portrait sounds fascinating: Inspired by the diaries of artist Frida Kahlo (and commissioned by the Philadelphia Museum of Art as part of a Kahlo retrospective), the 30-minute piece combines dance, live animation, elaborate set design and video to explore notions of shifting identity and self-expression, with Miller's body used as canvas for Rothlein's projections. Miro will also be doing workshops this weekend as part of their Dance Ybor residency at HCC; take one if you can. Self-Portrait: Friday-Saturday, March 27-28, 7:30 pm, HCC Mainstage Theatre, Palm Ave. and 14th St., Ybor City, $10 at the door or in advance at artstix@hccfl.edu (free to HCC faculty, staff and students (with ID). Modern dance workshops with Amanda Miller: Fri.-Sat., March 27-28, noon. Technology for Dance workshop with company designers: Sun. March 29, noon. All workshops will be in the HCC Dance Studio, 1505 E. Palm Ave., 2nd floor. infoarts@hccfl.edu or 253-7695.
Charity Clothing Swap and Trashy Fashion Show. Buffalo Gal Vintage invites "men, women and buckaroos" to bring a bag of clothing (or more) to trade — or if you don't have clothes to swap, bring $5 and buy a bag. (Caveat from Buffalo Gal: "Please, no undergarments! :-)") Leftover clothing and all money raised will go to CASA (Community Action Stops Abuse) to fight domestic violence against women and children. Free hot dogs from Dairy Inn. Sat. March 28, 10 a.m.-3:30 p.m. 10 a.m.-noon: Clothing drop-off. Noon: Trashy Fashion Show (all garments/accessories designed with at least 75% recycled materials). 1-3:30 p.m.: Shop and take away clothing in the same bag you brought. Buffalo Gal Vintage, 1219 MLK Jr. St. N., St. Petersburg, 727-290-8468, www.buffalogalvintage.com.
Sensory Overload 4.0. Creative Loafing's fourth annual multi-media art party. We're full-on embracing the digital age with a wide range of electro artists and bringing the party to the Honey Pot in Ybor. For music, we've got two Brooklyn-based-DJ/producers, Eliot Lipp and Michna (to find out more about them, see our Upcoming Concerts page), and Tampa's own Soft Rock Renegades. For visuals, there's works by professional artists, like Santiago Echeverry, whose interactive interface, "World," culls from a database of more than 1,900 cell-phone videos shot by Echeverry on three continents; architect Giancarlo Giusti, who offers his 3D vision of the sustainable redevelopment of the I-275 corridor via "Occupiable Highways'; and Deon Blackwell, who presents modified video games like Wii controllers reprogrammed to make music and an altered arcade console. The digital entries selected for SO 4.0's juried student art competition will be displayed on video screens, with two awards: a $1,000 prize for the work voted on by viewers, both in advance at the SO 4.0 site and during the event via Twitter; and the $1,000 jury winner selected by Arts Center curator Amanda Cooper and Chanse Chanthalansy, post-production director at Pyper Paul + Kenney. Live digital art-making demos, a fashion and photo show with projections on the models' bodies, and a raffle for a flat screen TV are among the many other sensational amusements at SO 4.0, with proceeds from the drawing and all drink sales to benefit CLIP, the Bay area's gay and lesbian film festival. Sat., March 28, 9 p.m.-1 a.m., The Honey Pot, 1507 E. Seventh Ave., Ybor City, Tampa, $10. (Leilani Polk)
This article appears in Mar 25-31, 2009.