The Golden Age of Spanish Painting gleams at the Boca Museum, dance pioneers contort and dazzle at the Parker, and a jazz siren tours Arts Garage. Plus, the art of “Akira” and more in your week ahead.
WEDNESDAY
What: Opening day of “The Outsider”
When: 2 p.m.
Where: Sandler Center at Levis JCC, 21050 95th Ave. S., Boca Raton
Cost: $30-$40
Contact: 561/558-2520, levisjcc.org
A nonpartisan satire of contemporary politics—if such a unicorn can still exist in a hyperpolarized era—Paul Slade Smith’s play “The Outsider” follows the rise of an uncharismatic policy wonk to his unnamed state’s governorship, after the sitting governor resigns in scandal. Terrified of public speaking, the reluctant new guv can’t even make it through his swearing-in ceremony and seems destined to become the laughing stock of his constituents—until a sleek political consultant decides to rebrand him into an everyman outsider. This commentary on persuasive style over boring substance in today’s political landscape runs through Nov. 17 as the opening play in West Boca Theatre Company’s 2024-2025 season.
THURSDAY
What: Opening day of “Splendor and Passion: Baroque Spain and its Empire”
When: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Where: Boca Raton Museum of Art, 501 Plaza Real, Boca Raton
Cost: $12 seniors, $16 adults
Contact: 561/392-2500, bocamuseum.org
South Florida museums often save their blockbuster shows to coincide with Art Basel Miami Beach, and this high-season exhibition at the Boca Raton Museum of Art is no exception. For “Splendor and Passion,” New York’s famed Hispanic Society Museum & Library, which owns more Hispanic art and literature than anywhere outside of Spain and Latin America, lent 57 masterpieces to the Boca Museum, premiering this exhibition here before it travels to two other venues. Dating from the 1600s and the tail end of the Golden Age of Spanish Painting, the works are glorious in every definition of the word, often rich with religious iconography, and conceived with the intention to bring spectators closer to God. Extraordinary and rarely seen oils by El Greco, Diego Velázquez and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo are among the paintings on display, in a striking departure from the museum’s usual bailiwick of 20th century and modern art. The exhibition runs through March 30.
What: Pilobolus re:Creation
When: 7:30 p.m.
Where: The Parker, 707 N.E. Eighth St., Fort Lauderdale
Cost: $45-$100
Contact: 954/462-0222, browardcenter.org
The best dance company ever named after a fungus, Pilobolus has been fusing contemporary choreography with gravity-defying contortionism since its auspicious founding, in a classroom in Dartmouth College, in 1971. The company’s latest production, “re:Creation,” features reimagined works dating all the way back to its founding year, through new compositions created in 2023. Each is a showcase for what the New York Times has called the “athlete-illusionists” that comprise its corps, from remarkable balancing acts and dramatic lifts to dazzling shadow play and comic set pieces involving giant eyeball headgear.
SATURDAY
What: Opening day of “Akira: Architecture of Neo-Tokyo”
When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Where: Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens, 4000 Morikami Park Road, Delray Beach
Cost: $10-$16 museum admission
Contact: 561/495-0233, morikami.org
For most moviegoers, Japanese animation was all but nonexistent in the United States until the international breakthrough “Akira,” whose 1989 release heralded a golden age for the genre commonly known as anime. Garnering $49 million at the box office from a $5.7 million budget, the postwar dystopia of “Akira” drew from cyberpunk and parapsychology to explore a story about runaway espers (individuals with ESP), telekinesis, and rival motorcycle gangs in a neon-soaked, crumbling vision of a future Tokyo. “Akira: Architecture of Neo-Tokyo” pays homage to the minds behind the movie by presenting 59 original production backgrounds, layout drawings, concept designs and image boards that have never been shown outside of Japan. These include such iconic visuals as the opening sequence, with its image of a sprawling metropolis fading, with marvelous perspective, into the distance; and the kinetic motorcycle chase scene. For “Akira” nerds, the appeal here is obvious, and if you haven’t seen the film, the exhibition will encourage a long-overdue stream. The exhibition runs through April 6.
SUNDAY
What: Halie Loren
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Arts Garage, 94 N.E. Second Ave., Delray Beach
Cost: $40-$45
Contact: 561/450-6357, artsgarage.org
Raised in Sitka, Alaska, vocalist Halie Loren grew up in the largest city by total area in the entire United States—but one with a population of just 8,000, all the more opportunity for a singer with a diverse palette of influences to stand out in the frozen north and beyond. Loren has honed her chops studying the Great American Songbook, jazz pioneers like Etta James, and folk-pop singers such as Joni Mitchell Sarah McLachlan, enveloping them all in a sound that has carried across a dozen albums. She’s visiting Delray in support in support of her latest album Dreams Lost and Found, which includes jazz standards like “How High the Moon” alongside pop cuts from Leonard Cohen and the Beatles.
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