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By Savannah Whaley

“What’s important about the Men Who Dance festival is that it really promotes and incites a lot of conversation, which is the main goal we seek,” said Men Who Dance (MWD) Artistic Director Rafi Maldonado-Lopez.

That vibrant, captivating and often breathtaking conversation will continue in the festival’s sixth season November 29-30, 2025 at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts.

Tickets will be on sale in June at www.browardcenter.org/events and OutClique® readers can get an exclusive 15% discount off all ticket levels by using the code MWDOUTCLIQUE2025.

The festival which has garnered rapturous critical acclaim and built an army of ardent followers had its origins with a snarky comment from the host of a TV morning show.

After reporting in 2019 that Prince William’s son loved ballet, Good Morning America co-anchor Lara Spencer threw out, “I have news for you, Prince William: We’ll see how long that lasts.”

The next morning, hundreds of men showed up to an impromptu dance lesson outside the show’s Times Square studio.

“So that really kicked it off for me,” Maldonado-Lopez recalled. “I said we really need to be on stage and start normalizing people’s ideas because I know as a young dancer how afraid I was to say, ‘Hey I want to be a dancer.’ The challenge for us through Men Who Dance is how do you normalize the idea of just men on stage. When we see a guy dancing, we have this tendency to immediately label it. He’s the Latin lover or he’s the black tap dancer or he’s the hip-hop city guy.”

A dancer, professor, and choreographer with both national and international companies who has enjoyed a career spanning more than three decades, Maldonado- Lopez ran up against those pre-conceptions as a young dancer himself.

“Dance, especially classical, was very restrictive,” he shared. “I was always told that I was the frame, the girl was the pretty picture, and my job was to hold her up. I always joke that I have a friend who’s an architect who said, ‘Well, you know, that if you go frame a picture, sometimes the frame is more than what you paid for the picture.”

While MWD uses the arts as a vehicle to promote social change with a stated purpose to challenge “outdated notions, reclaiming space for male vulnerability, strength, and artistry,” it makes it happen with one basic rule of thumb.

Maldonado-Lopez emphatically stated, “We talk so much about creating safe spaces, but those safe spaces that we create on stage really are nondiscriminatory towards anything other than ‘Can you dance and how good are you?’”

The festival’s prestige has dancers and dance companies from here and abroad hoping to secure a place on stage this fall.

“We start now with the core companies, the top companies from South Florida,” Maldonado-Lopez explained. “We have everything from Miami City Ballet, Dance NOW! Miami, Dimensions Dance Theatre and Arts Ballet Theatre as well as startup companies that are just pushing to get onstage.”

Maldonado-Lopez co-founded the Inter-American Choreographic Institute (ICI) that produces the festival and is also an international cultural exchange. The company has expanded into seven countries, with a satellite in Brazil, manufacturing in Paraguay with women-owned business, and a current production in Mexico.

Each year, the ICI promotes a workshop in a different country to bring the best back to the festival. Prior seasons have featured collaborations with Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, and Paraguay. Future outreach is being considered to Ecuador and Peru.

“We have national dancers as well,” Maldonado-Lopez added. “We have people from New York and dancers that came from San Diego Ballet and Kansas City Ballet.”

The festival also gives audiences the thrill of seeing works for the first time. Last year’s festival featured eight world premieres of the 17 pieces presented. Earlier festivals presented as many as 10 to 12 world premieres.

“I already have people telling me that they have a piece they have been working on for Men Who Dance,” Maldonado-Lopez said. “We don’t censor any of the work. You can do whatever you want as long as it’s the highest quality level. That’s really what we’re interested in. You can be whatever type of dance, but make sure you’re at the top of your game.”

The festival has a proud history of nourishing young choreographers by giving them a platform and this year for the first time it will introduce young artists between 16 – 18 years old.

“We’ve never had anyone on stage that is not a fully professional dancer employed as a full professional dancer,” Maldonado-Lopez previewed. “We look at who’s coming after us with a small section called the New Generation. We will start giving them that professional experience, even build up their resume, while exposing them to a very literate dance crowd.”

An open call will be held for dancers to audition in the fall at Sanctuary of the Arts, the arts complex in Coral Gables where ICI is headquartered. The auditions will be open to individuals, ensembles and anyone who identifies as male.

Engaging youth in dance is top of mind as arts in general and arts education face new challenges. Maldonado-Lopez believes that artists need to change the narrative about the importance of the arts as an economic engine and the value it brings to creating the whole person.

“Kids take math but they’re not going to be mathematicians,” he said. “What is missing from the conversation is arts education is the first time that you meet non-linear multidimensional learning. A kid in dance is actually developing kinetic intelligence, which means he’s going to feel comfortable in his body, which means he’s going to create social relationships, he’s not going to be shy, and probably gets the job that he wants.”

Maldonado-Lopez is looking forward to what will be seen on stage and heard afterwards in the lobby.

“I’m very excited every year,” he said. “We challenge the people in Men Who Dance to present work that creates conversation, and I think that’s what all of the work does.”