Dance: The Miami City Ballet closes out its season at the Kravis Center this weekend with four performances of two well-loved ballets: Jerome Robbins’ Dances at a Gathering, set to music by Chopin, and Slaughter on 10th Avenue, part of Richard Rodgers’ score for On Your Toes, as choreographed by George Balanchine. If you can’t catch this fine company’s mounting of these two ballets this weekend (today through Sunday), you can see it at Fort Lauderdale’s Broward Center for the Performing Arts from April 26-28, or at the Ziff Ballet Opera House in Miami from May 3-5. On the 3rd, in fact, former New York Mets catcher Mike Piazza makes a cameo as a supernumerary gangster in Slaughter on 10th Avenue, in what he says is an appearance for his daughter Nicoletta, who is currently studying ballet at the Miami City Ballet School. For this weekend’s performances at the Kravis, call 832-7469 or visit www.kravis.org.
Film: Film is a global language, but it still comes as a surprise that a tale of a Sub-Saharan teen forced by rebel forces to fight in their bloody civil war comes from Canada. In fact, War Witch was that nation’s Oscar submission and nominee in the foreign-language category. Although it did not win, it receives an area screening beginning today, thanks to the Mos’Art Theatre in Lake Park and the Living Room Theatres in Boca Raton. Writer-director Kim Nguyen brings impressive lyricism to such a brutal subject, and prepare to be captivated by amateur actress Rachel Mwanza as the pregnant 14-year-old who tells her history to her unborn child.
Theater: When Eugene Ionesco’s Exit the King played Broadway in 2009, in a new adaptation that was co-written and performed by Geoffrey Rush, he was praised for his comic tour de force performance, before lowering the boom in the second half as inept King Berenger I ― Ionesco’s alter ego ― came face to face with his own mortality. Now, in a production at Palm Beach Dramaworks that features the sublime Colin McPhillamy as the king, the emphasis shifts from the comedy in favor of the darker, devastating conclusion. After all, the company is called Dramaworks. Lending solid support to McPhillamy are Angie Radosh and Claire Brownell as his two queens, as well as Beth Dimon and Jim Ballard as whimsical court underlings. Continuing through April 28. Call (561) 514-4042 for tickets.
Music: When Edward Elgar composed his Cello Concerto at the end of the First World War, few knew it would turn out to be his last major work. His wife was already ill with cancer when it had its premiere in 1919, and even though he would live another 14 years after her death early in 1920, he never really recovered. The concerto is also indelibly associated with the tragedy of British cellist Jacqueline du Pre, whose championing of this work in the late 1960s made it a repertory piece before she succumbed to multiple sclerosis. It is a beautiful and darkly colored work, too rarely heard in these parts, but starting tonight and running through Tuesday, the American cellist Zuill Bailey performs it with the South Florida Symphony at concerts in Key West, Aventura, Fort Lauderdale and Delray Beach (Tuesday). Also on the program are the Brahms Second Symphony and the Rosamunde Overture of Schubert. Call 954-522-8445 or visit www.southfloridasymphony.org.
Art: The 51st Annual Delray Beach Affair, an arts and crafts street festival featuring the artwork of more than 800 artists, craftspeople and photographers, returns to downtown Delray Beach starting today and running through this weekend. Atlantic Avenue from Swinton Avenue to the Intracoastal Waterway will be lined with booths showcasing pottery, sculpture, jewelry, crafts, photography, watercolor, acrylic and oil paintings and stained glass art from artists from all over the country. Festival hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. today and Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. The festival’s commemorative poster, depicting pink gladiolas and The Colony Hotel, is the work of Delray Beach artist Ola Sorensen. Admission to the Delray Affair is free. For more information, visit www.delrayaffair.com.