OLTRE: News & Buzz — What To Do Next

Dance, Theater, Performance Art, Nightlife... because sometimes the show is the destination.

TAM Ballet

The Origin Stories

Sardinia, Italy - Reviving the great ballet classics and bringing them into the future, fully restored (not reinvented): This is the goal of TAM Ballet, the ambitious new company of Teatro Arcimboldi in Milan. The dance ensemble premiered in February with Swan Lake, featuring the extraordinary presence of English National Ballet soloists Vsevolod Maievskyi and Anna Nevzorova. The company's next can't-miss production will be The Nutcracker, December 12 - 23, at the Teatro Lirico in the city of Cagliari on Sardinia. teatroarcimboldi.it

Jon Batiste

MUSIC

All That Jazz

Nassau, The Bahamas - As palm trees sway in the Caribbean breeze outside, guests inside can sway the Nassau night away at the new Jon Batiste's Jazz Club at Grand Hyatt Baha Mar. It's the first nightclub foray for the Oscar-, Grammy- and Emmy-winning singer, songwriter and composer. The 13,000-square-foot club offers three live stages, serving up a mix of high-energy vocal performances and big band standards seven nights a week. The club kitchen's menu - jambalaya croquette, spicy creole lobster roll - takes a note from Batiste's hometown of New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz. @jazzclubbahamar

My Neighbor Totoro

THEATER

London, England - Based on filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki's 1988 Japanese fantasy film of the same name, the theatrical production of My Neighbour Totoro took London by storm when it debuted for a limited run in 2022 - and took home six Olivier Awards. Well, now it's back through March 2026, at least, and it is currently one of the West End's hottest tickets. At the Gillian Lynne Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company beautifully captures the magic of Miyazaki's iconic tale - a coming-of-age story that explores the transformative power of imagination - with the assistance of puppets by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. totoroshow.com

Photo by Nathalie Sternalski

U.S., Europe - After spending the last year touring Europe and Canada, acclaimed French choreographer Herve Koubi brings his groundbreaking Sol Invictus to the U.S. this fall, with stops in Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Charlotte and Washington, D.C. Then it's back to Europe for an extended tour through France, Sweden, Italy and more. Koubi's revolutionary show mixes traditional ballet with martial arts, high-energy hip-hop and B-boy street moves. The troupe of 17 artists displays breathtaking physicality in a mesmerizing visual spectacle. The message: Dance unifies in a turbulent world. @hervekoubi

Rosalia de Cuba at La Botica

San Jose del Cabo, Mexico - The hottest show in Los Cabos right now is Rosalia de Cuba at La Botica. La Botica ("drugstore" in English) is the glamorous, apothecary-inspired speakeasy tucked into Rosewood Las Ventanas al Paraiso in the heart of the region's tourist corridor. After a sultry warm-up with the live band and dancers, the flamboyant Cuban crooner takes the stage late-night Thursdays through Saturdays to perform festive, must-see sets of Latin jazz infused with Afro-Cuban rhythms. You'll want to reserve well in advance. Or just come on a Monday night instead, when the bar transforms for an intimate magic show. @laboticaspeakeasy

Bangkok Kunsthalle

Bangkok, Thailand - Taking over a former printing house on the fringe of Chinatown, the new Bangkok Kunsthalle is neither a gallery nor a theater, but rather a shape-shifting stage for experiments in art, architecture, cinema and performance. Deep within the building's dark, exposed-concrete bowels, artists from Thailand and abroad are tasked with leaving their marks by way of site-specific productions ranging from novel interpretations of traditional khon mask dances to experimental Thai indie films and boundary-blurring dance. bangkok-kunsthalle.org

DISCOSHOW

Las Vegas, Nevada - Expect to be catapulted to another time at Spiegelworld's new DISCOSHOW, an all-consuming extravaganza where the concept of "audience" becomes fluid. (Spiegelworld is that crazy circus/vaudeville group responsible for Absinthe, one of the best shows in town for nearly 15 years.) Inside DISCOSHOW's LED box theater, guests are invited to join the dancing and roller-skating cast amid their electrifying moves before exploring further into a moody nightlife labyrinth of art and performance that includes an upscale diner and two separate cocktail bars (one appropriately dubbed The Glitterloft). Packing tip: You might want to dress the part. It's flamboyantly '70s-themed. spiegelworld.com/shows/discoshow

Waiting for Gadot

New York, New York - Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, stars of the Bill & Ted films, are teaming up again for more theater of the absurd - but this time at the Hudson Theatre on Broadway. The real-life pals will play friends Estragon and Vladimir in a revival of Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett's classic and self-proclaimed tragicomedy. Limited run, September to January. godotbroadway.com

Gustavo Dudamel

New York, New York - Gustavo Dudamel shocked the classical-music world when he announced that he'd be leaving the Los Angeles Philharmonic - which he's conducted since 2009 - to become music and artistic director of the New York Philharmonic. Arguably our greatest living conductor, Dudamel doesn't officially lead the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York until 2026. However, he's already begun conducting the orchestra with guest appearances throughout 2025. It's been a busy year for classical music's biggest star. In April, he conducted L.A.'s orchestra at the Coachella music festival in California - with guest appearances by LL Cool J, Maren Morris and Laufey - the first time an orchestra had ever performed a featured set at the popular desert festival. nyphil.org

Infinite Life Installation

ART
Electric Daisy Carnivalesque

Hokkaido, Japan - TeamLab, the fast-spreading Japanese multidisciplinary art collective from Tokyo that's been creating immersive worlds of digital art around Asia and, soon, the Middle East, has just revealed a wildly beautiful permanent exhibit at Sapporo's J Art Foundation. Titled "Infinite Life Proliferating on the Ruins of a Church - A Whole Year per Year," this latest interactive creation allows viewers to affect the life cycle of radiant flowers with their touch.

This article originally appeared in OLTRE Volume 10, Summer 2025.

Reporting: Brad A. Johnson, Don Nichols, Carolyn O'Neil, Kathryn Romeyn, Chris Schalkx, Laura Schooling and Marina Spironetti