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Carnival Center for the Performing Arts' free festival showcases a 'cultureama' of diversity

By EVELYN McDONNELL AND DANIEL CHANG

dchang@MiamiHerald.com

In the shadow of Miami's newest landmark, people danced in the streets Sunday.

With dozens of concerts on seven stages in and around the Carnival Center for the Performing Arts, and the Miami Carnival Parade marching down Biscayne Boulevard, the event -- Target GlobalBeat -- finally achieved what the performing arts center's biggest boosters claimed it would do: bring together people from Miami's many walks of life.

Where the events of the previous three nights exuded elegance, glamour and privilege, Sunday's free festival appeared to connect the dots, if just for one day, of Miami's social, economic and cultural puzzle.

Ladies in wide-brimmed hats and oversized sunglasses shared the sidewalk with teens in baggy clothes and baseball caps on the brick-paved outdoor Thomson Plaza for the Arts -- all of them lined up along Biscayne Boulevard to watch the Miami Carnival dancers in brilliant, feathered costumes.

''We feel like we're at a culturerama,'' said Carol Green, a Miami Beach attorney, as she and her sister, Marcia Green, visiting from New York, waited inside the Sanford and Dolores Ziff Ballet Opera House for Fusho Daiko, a Japanese taiko drumming ensemble, to take the stage.

The GlobalBeat featured a potpourri of musical styles: bluegrass, hip-hop, tango, son, soca, reggae, R&B, funk, norteño, Indian, calypso, and more. Everyone was checking out each other's sound.

''It's a really good mixture of different cultures,'' said Marc Joseph, leader of the Haitian band Ayabonmbe, who was listening to the Puerto Rican dance band Plena Es! in the Peacock Studio. ``We need the arts as part of the advancement of society. Miami's not only football and basketball. This is good for the children.''

The festival drew on two of South Florida's strengths: cultural diversity and love of a good party/festival. Almost all of the artists on the bill have roots in other countries, but they're based in South Florida.

Some of them are the top of their field: Fiddler James Kelly was just named musician of the year on Irish television. ''People are looking for a venue and have been for a long time,'' Kelly said. ``It's a beautiful place.''

For many in Miami, it was the first chance to see the Carnival Center up close -- and for the most part people said they loved it.

''It's great. I didn't expect all this, experiencing new sounds, different things,'' said Anthony Joseph, 21, of Miami, who had come for the Miami Carnival but was listening to Kelly's performance in the John S. and James L. Knight Concert Hall.

''I like the fact that it brought everybody out here,'' said Shajairn Powell as she sat on the steps of the Ziff Ballet Opera House with her 10-month-old daughter, Nyla, in a stroller.

With thousands of people downtown and sections of Biscayne Boulevard and surrounding streets closed to cars, there were some traffic delays and parking remained an issue for the center patrons.

Bill Rutan of Palmetto Bay said he parked at a meter about four blocks from the Carnival Center. With a bandage wrapped around his surgically repaired right knee, Rutan sat inside the Studio Theater listening to the Gold Coast Banjo Band -- a septet of six banjos and one tuba -- perform Ain't We Got Fun.

Miami needed a performing arts center downtown, Rutan said: ''I'm tired of going to Broward.'' But while he expects to attend the center for Broadway and jazz -- he has tickets to Nicole Henry in November -- Rutan worries that on event nights, ``parking is going to be a nightmare.''

Inside the center, though, people were having fun.

While the well-heeled who paid $500 for the Concert for Miami opening gala barely left their seats on Thursday, South Floridians young and old cut the rug to Plena Es! on Sunday.

Eda Rodriguez, a 20-year-old Miamian of Puerto Rican descent, shook her hips with Alva Ovida, a Haitian choreographer and dance teacher.

''I like this place,'' Rodriguez said. ``I appreciate they're helping the arts, especially in America, where it's so diverse, we need to show our culture.''

For musicians, the three state-of-the-art performance venues are a welcome addition to the struggling scene.

''It's what Miami really needs,'' said Pierre Ramos, leader of the Broward-based Plena Es! ``It helps not only bands that are established, but those that are trying to come up.''

The musicians said they were glad to be part of the Carnival Center's opening weekend, although, as John Joseph, a musician who recently moved from Dominica and performs under the name Jeff Joe, said: ``I would have loved to perform for the $500 seats . . . This is going to improve and highlight the performing arts here in Miami. Talent has to have somewhere suitable to be showcased.''