In 2011, while training for a marathon on the University of Massachusetts Lowell's Riverwalk, Bianca Ramirez was brutally assaulted. The rest of her morning is a hazy memory.

"It was so abrupt," she recalls. "Being attacked came out of nowhere. I literally thought I died, waking up in bushes not know where I was, who I was, or what happened to me." Afterwards, she says, "I feared everything and everyone. Aside from that, I couldn't jog or get on treadmill. Everything led me back to those thoughts [of the assault]."

It took about two months after the attack for Ramirez, who is currently getting her master's in film production at the University of Miami, to channel her emotions into creativity. Writing became her therapy and, as she calls it, her oxygen. She battled traumatic, sleepless nights by penning 60 pages before she realized it; they included her thoughts on the assault, but much more.

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Taylor Mac likes pop music. And he's pretty indiscriminate about the pop music he likes, from primitive folk songs of the 1770s to the Auto-Tuned, focus-grouped hits of today. The actor and gender-bending diva, recognized in New York City and beyond for his politically conscious, impossible-to-reproduce theatrical spectacles, is channeling his love of music for the masses in his next gargantuan project: a 24-hour concert in the Big Apple, slated for late next year, that will cover the past 24 decades of pop music.

But well before his 24-Hour History of Popular Music, Mac will run a number of mini musical marathons, including his much-anticipated appearance at this weekend's provocative Out in the Tropics festival at the Colony Theatre. Titled 20th Century Concert (Abridged), Friday night's show will feature a song from each decade of the 20th Century, in addition to a pair of encores. Mac will likely be an art exhibition in and of himself, with attire that will make Lady Gaga's and Björk's performance garb look conservative. Mac spoke with New Times about his unique aesthetic and the ghosts of pop music past and present.

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Bleeding Palm

When it comes to staging an adaptation of Tennessee Williams' The Night of the Iguana titled la noche i.delicatissima, the whimsically creative minds behind local art collective Southernmost Situations have decidedly put together a show that doesn't conform to the dated rules of performing arts.

Born out of a spontaneous trip to Key West, Southernmost Situations is a Miami-based social catalyst that "challenges the boundaries between contemporary art, performance, and the traditional curatorial model." One of their most memorable previous performances includes a video art show at The Corner last year. The curatorial collaboration between Situation Range and Audio/ Visual Situation brought art to a typically art-free venue, with performance and visual pieces with an emphasis on sound.

This Thursday, Friday, and Sunday the art collective's swampy play La Noche I.Delicatissima is coming to life at Swampspace in the Design District. The play tells the sensual story of a single, lascivious night among a widowed proprietress, a defrocked minister, the world's oldest living poet, and several other characters who clash during one stormy night--you know, a typical day in Miami.

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First produced in 2007, Evan Smith's The Savannah Disputation is a holy war in microcosm - an acerbic verbal brawl on a single suburban property, currently receiving an exceptional production from Zoetic Stage at the Arsht Center.

Barbara Bradshaw and Laura Turnbull play Mary and Margaret, Roman Catholic sisters cohabitating on a leafy street in Savannah, Georgia. It's obvious from the first moment who wears the pants in their arrangement; for the loud, obnoxious Mary, gossip is a second language, and she spares no insults for the filthy, rude, phony Catholics with whom she shares her pews. She bullies Margaret, whose docile demeanor and lack of religious rectitude makes her an ideal target for new neighbor Melissa (Lindsey Forgey), a peroxide blonde with a beaming smile, a peachy southern drawl, and a box of literature emblazoned with a "Jesus: Change We Can Believe In" sticker. Melissa worships at a small but extreme fundamentalist church that believes Catholics, with their worship of statues and popes (aka false idols) and misguided dogmas, are headed straight for eternal damnation - for only her sect is the one true faith.

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via londonist.com

Lewis Carroll + street art = Alice in Wynwoodland.

Miami is nothing if not a rabbit hole, a place where doe-eyed innocents, much like Alice, gather en masse and then disappear into a surreal void where they meet tweaked-out freaks and crazy characters. So an Alice in Wonderland-themed event seems incredibly appropriate for our far-out fantasyland.

Enter Alice in Wynwoodland. The intriguing concept, a costumed bike ride/theater performance, is the collaborative brainchild of the Front Yard Theater Collective (FYTC) and local bike champion Emerge Miami. So on April 27, bike riders across Miami can don their best Cheshire Cat getups and take to the streets to follow Alice on her trippy trip through the ether.

The premise: What would happen if Alice's final destination were Wynwood instead of Wonderland?

See also:
- Miami-Dade's BIKE305 Initiative Aims to Add Hundreds of Miles of New Bike Paths
- DecoBike is Coming to Miami (Pending Commission Approval)

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Merrell Virgin/VSPOT Photography

He'd entered the ring with a respectable 16-1 record, seven of which were by knockout. But despite a six-inch reach advantage against his opponent and the genetic predisposition of a former heavyweight champion, Marvis Frazier was likely the only person inside Glens Falls Civic Center on July 26, 1988, who actually thought he stood a chance against a 24-0 "Iron" Mike Tyson.

"It is not a matter of if Mike Tyson knocks out Marvis Frazier," opined boxing commentator Alex Wallau before the fight. "It's just a matter of when."

Tyson went on to earn his 25th victory that night, landing a ferocious uppercut some 20-odd seconds into the bout.

"I knew deep down in my blood that I was going to stop him in the first round," he said with a menacing straight face after the fight. "I'm confident I can beat any fighter in the world."

He almost did.

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"I've wanted another one of these for so long," a gracious Lela Elam said last night as she accepted the Carbonell Award for Best Actress in a Play for her work in GableStage's Ruined. "I think they just look better as a set."

For Elam, who won a Carbonell in 2008 for GableStage's In the Continuum, it was a brief moment of levity in an otherwise tearful and moving acceptance speech -- and she wasn't the only actor to struggle to keep her composure.

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Photo by Alejandra Serna for FGO

Catalina Cuervo and Jeremias Masseda - Maria de Buenos Aires

Sexy. Seductive. Sweaty. These are three S's not typically associated with opera, the favorite pastime of the monied elderly. But times have changed, and this ain't your grandma's opera anymore.

On second thought, judging by the audience at last night's Tango double-bill at The Stage, maybe it still is your grandma's opera -- but that's only because the younger generations haven't caught on yet. They will. Especially if the Florida Grand Opera (FGO) keeps bringing sexy back like they did with last night's performance.

See also:
- Florida Grand Opera to Debut New Series at The Stage: "We Don't Know What's Going to Happen"
- Florida Grand Opera Returns to Wynwood's Second Saturday Art Walk

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Fela Kuti, the pioneering Nigerian Afrobeat musician, activist, presidential candidate and polygamist (at one point, he had 28 wives) seems an unlikely subject for an American musical. But that's exactly why the show Fela!, based on a biography of Kuti's tumultuous life, is so special. Like the musician himself, it's a brazen affront to politeness, rife with profanity, simulated pot-smoking, political rabble-rousing and harrowing violence. Moreover, it refuses to adhere to any conventions or trends, repeatedly broadening the definition of what a Broadway musical can be.

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Photo by Carol Rosegg

Michelle Williams rockin' the stage in Fela!

Since the Super Bowl, pop-culture chatter has essentially revolved around Beyoncé -- her HBO special, her world tour, her GQ cover. But let's not forget about the other members of Destiny's Child -- especially the one who's starring in a Broadway show, planning a new reality TV show, and dealing gracefully with her haters.

Grammy-winning Michelle Williams is taking the lead in Fela!, a musical tribute to Fela Kuti, the Nigerian singer who created Afrobeat as a musical genre and used it to speak out against government corruption. The highly acclaimed song-and-dance show is headed to Miami's Adrienne Arsht Center March 19. We spoke to Williams about the stigma of depression, Blue Ivy's charms, and the fried Oreos at Prime One Twelve.

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