Festival of the Arts Boca brings cirque action and Beethoven to Mizner Park, Ireland’s glorious sirens visit FAU, and cat videos stream on the big screen. Plus, Pink Martini, Tesla Quartet and more in your week ahead.
WEDNESDAY
What: Tesla Quartet
Where: Duncan Theatre, 4200 Congress Ave., Lake Worth
When: 2 p.m.
Cost: $35
Contact: 561/993-1160, duncantheatre.org
This Juilliard-formed string quartet takes its name from the tech pioneer Nikola Tesla and his quote “Though free to think and act, we are held together, like stars in the firmament, with ties inseparable.” The members of the foursome, hailing from the U.S., South Korea and Russia, consider their music the inseparable force binding them together with their audiences. They perform with charm, wit and verve, whether it’s quartets from Hayden, Beethoven, Mozart or new works from modern composers. Awarding a perfect five stars to the group’s 2018 debut album, BBC Music Magazine praised the “radiant warmth and affection that proves increasingly contagious on repeated listening.”
THURSDAY
What: Opening night of Festival of the Arts Boca
Where: Mizner Park Cultural Arts Center, 201 Plaza Real, Boca Raton
When: 7 p.m.
Cost: $25
Contact: 561/300-4138, festivalboca.org
This year’s eclectic Festival of the Arts celebration kicks off a day early with the recently announced screening of “Forte,” director David Donnelly’s crowdfunded peek into the lives of three women from around the world who are up shaking the foundations of classical music. Following the screening, the movie’s executive producer, along with the stratospherically talented women of the Eroica Trio (pictured), will engage the audience in a discussion. Cultural fun continues throughout the weekend with Friday’s high-flying, live-scored Cirque du Cinema; Saturday’s interactive Moth StorySLAM and Beethoven Birthday Bash with the aforementioned Eroica Trio; and Sunday with virtuoso guitarist Miloš Karadaglić.
FRIDAY
What: Opening day of “Meleko Mokgosi: Your Trip to Africa”
Where: Perez Art Museum, 1103 Biscayne Blvd., Miami
When: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Cost: $12-$16
Contact: 305/375-3000, pamm.org
Hyper-realistic and popping with bright color, the paintings of Botswana-born Meleko Mokgosi mask a fierce criticism of colonialism, xenophobia, inequality and the ineffable ideals of democracy in third-world spaces. In “Your Trip to Africa,” the artist explores and critiques the 1962 experimental documentary “Our Trip to Africa,” whose filmmaker, Peter Kubelka, followed a wealthy Austrian family through a grotesque and culturally insensitive African safari. The exhibition runs through May 30.
SATURDAY
What: CatVideoFest
Where: Living Room Theaters at FAU, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton
When: Show time TBA
Cost: $7.50-$10.50
Contact: 561/549-2600, fau.livingroomtheaters.com
What computer solitaire used to be for Gen-Xers, cat videos are for millennials and Gen-Z—an infectious diversion, a break from the workaday noise, a mindless time suck. They’re also addicting: Watch one cat video on YouTube, and it’s easy to plunge down an bottomless rabbit hole of felines falling off televisions, playing piano, adorably nuzzling dogs, et al. But the annual CatVideoFest is a way for even film snobs and cat-video novices to get in on the action, because its intrepid creators sifted through a year’s worth of internet clips to curate the very greatest. What’s best about this irresistible elevation of cat videos into cinematic art is that proceeds from ticket sales benefit local cat charities and animal welfare organizations.
What: Celtic Woman
Where: Kaye Auditorium at FAU, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton
When: 7:30 p.m.
Cost: $48-$150
Contact: 561/297-6124, fauevents.com
Celebrating their 15th year of recording and touring, the indefatigable ladies of Celtic Woman continue to spread the joy, local color and music of their Irish heritage to eager audiences around the world, selling upwards of 9 million albums in the process. On this tour, titled “Celebration,” Mairéad Carlin, Éabha McMahon and Megan Walsh will provide the soaring, heavenly voices in English and Gallic, accompanied as always by Tara McNeill’s melodies on fiddle and Irish harp. Two pipers, two drummers, traditional step dancers and backing vocalists will assist in creating the jubilant, bucolic sound, which is likely to include material from Celtic Woman’s 11 albums, and perhaps covers from artists like Enya, Sting and Judy Garland.
What: Pink Martini
Where: Arsht Center, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami
When: 8:30 p.m.
Cost: $35-$125
Contact: 305/949-6722, arshtcenter.org
Storm Large and China Forbes sound like the names of a pulp detective and his femme fatale, but these versatile vocalists are of more elegant caliber. They share microphone duties for Pink Martini, the self-described “little orchestra” founded in Oregon in 1994 to provide inclusive soundtracks for civic and political fundraisers. Ten albums later, Pink Martini is far more than background music for big givers: The 13-piece symphony performs music in 22 languages and traverses pop, jazz, lounge music, Latin and classical. For this performance, arrive early for South Florida pianist Rachael Rage, who will perform—and take requests—in the lobby from 6:30 to 8 p.m.
MONDAY, MARCH 2
What: An Evening With Jesmyn Ward
Where: Mizner Park East Tent, 590 Plaza Real, Boca Raton
When: 7 p.m.
Cost: $35-$45
Contact: 561/300-4138, festvalboca.org
At this moment in history, few names in contemporary fiction are as important as Jesmyn Ward’s, who in 2017 became the first woman to win the National Book Award for Fiction twice: first for 2011’s Salvage the Bones, an unsparing drama about an African-American family struggling with a teenage pregnancy in the days leading to the landfall of Hurricane Katrina; and then for 2017’s Sing, Unburied, Sing, a poetic road trip about a broken family in the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, which earned comparisons to Toni Morrison and William Faulkner.
