Dance Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee
The 20th Annual African American Film Festival
Feb 19 – 22, 2025 • Curated by author and cinema scholar Terri Francis
5-Show Series $60 • Save $25 when you purchase the entire series. All films in Rinker Playhouse • General admission
Dr. Francis and her special guests offer you a journey with unforgettable sports and dance films by extraordinary filmmakers. Like movies, dance and sports connect people. They incite fierce rivalries. For talented youth, they can be a way out of tough places.
Dance and sports are fun, yet they inspire complex engagement with history, art, and society. This year’s African American Film Festival mixes immersive documentaries, recent romantic dramas and classic black- and-white movies. Saluting dancers’ athleticism and praising the finesse athletes bring to the game, DANCE LIKE A BUTTERFLY, STING LIKE A BEE showcases heroic stories that might have been overlooked and spotlights films starring some of the greatest dancers and athletes of all time.
Guests attending PEAK performances in the Rinker Playhouse will receive one complimentary beverage with every ticket purchased (underage guests will be offered a non-alcoholic selection).
PEAK performances made possible by a grant from the MLDauray Arts Initiative in honor of Leonard and Sophie Davis
Curator
Dr. Terri Francis, Curator
Terri Francis is an internationally recognized author, curator and professor. Since moving to Miami in 2021, Dr. Francis has presented film screenings and moderated conversations on independent cinema, literature and the arts at Coral Gables Art Cinema, Books and Books, the Miami Film Festival, the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, Third Horizon Film Festival and the Pérez Art Museum Miami. She is a 2022 Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grantee, and her publications can be found in Another Gaze, SEEN, Lithub, Film History, Black Camera and Film Quarterly. She recently co-edited a collection of essays for Feminist Media Histories called “Camille Billops and James V. Hatch: A Certain Defiance.” Dr. Francis is an associate professor in the School of Communication at the University of Miami and the author of Josephine Baker’s Cinematic Prism (Indiana University Press, 2021). Dr. Francis co-curated Icon in Motion: Josephine Baker for the New National Gallery in Berlin, Germany and programmed for Courtisane, a platform for film and visual arts and Cinematek, the Royal Film Archive of Belgium. She has been part of the African American Film Festival at the Kravis Center since 2023, first introducing Poetic Justice and later curating Inventing Beauty and Jazz Legends & Cinematic Icons. For the Festival’s 20th season, she has designed Dance Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee—a journey with unforgettable sports and dance films by extraordinary filmmakers.
Special Guest
Cathleen Dean
Cathleen Dean is an Emmy Award–winning filmmaker, cultural arts curator, and photographer. Born and raised in Upstate New York, she draws inspiration from her Bahamian heritage and her father’s South Florida roots in Hallandale. Dean holds an MFA in Major Motion Pictures from the University of Miami and a BA in History from Columbia University. Her Emmy-winning documentary Wade in the Water: Drowning in Racism has screened nationally. She is currently developing Through a Flowering Place – Women of the SaltWater Railroad and In the Footsteps of Harry T. Moore.
Gentry Isaiah George
Gentry Isaiah George is a choreographer, educator and Artistic Director of Zest Collective, a Miami-based dance company he founded in 2013 in New York City. Born and raised in Miami, George trained at New World School of the Arts and The Juilliard School, later performing with Ailey II and Dance Theatre of Harlem. His choreography blends ballet, jazz and contemporary traditions with storytelling rooted in cultural history and music. Signature works include Afro Blue, Game of Love – The Nat King Cole Suite, The Fountain, and his ongoing Roots & Rhythms series, which celebrates the evolution of Black music and dance across the African diaspora. George has received multiple honors, including the Miami Individual Artist Award (2023, 2024, 2025), the Dance Miami Choreographer Award and a Community Grant, as well as residencies with Miami Light Project, AIRIE (Artists in Residence in Everglades) and the Moss Center. Alongside his choreographic work, George is a dedicated educator. He is a Professor of Dance at New World School of the Arts, teaching ballet and composition, and has led youth and community programs through the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center, Arts Ballet Theatre and Miami Theater Center. In 2022 he launched Roots & Rhythms Educational Initiative, bringing masterclasses, performances and talkbacks into schools to connect students with the history of Black dance and music. Currently pursuing his MFA in Choreography at Jacksonville University, George is developing his thesis project, Voices of America: An American Songbook in Motion, an evening-length work that explores American folk, jazz, Afro-Cuban, spiritual and exotica traditions through dance. His mission is threefold: to celebrate diversity through movement, to create original works that foster collaboration and to expand access to the arts for future generations.
Nadege Green
Nadege Green is a Miami-based historian, journalist and multi-hyphenate cultural worker whose work bridges archives, storytelling and scholarship. Rooted in the histories and lived experiences of Black Miami, she documents, reimagines and resists historical erasure through writing, research and creative practice. As a journalist, her reporting has illuminated issues of race, displacement and community resilience; as a scholar and artist, she engages archives, oral histories and artistic practices to tell stories that affirm Black life and memory in South Florida and beyond.
Jimmy Jacques
Jimmy Jacques is the founder of Lighthouse Stories LLC and director of Gridiron Diaspora: The Henry McDonald Story. With a background in journalism, including fieldwork for Reuters and ITV News London in Haiti, Jacques combines historical storytelling with modern tools such as AI to preserve powerful narratives for new generations. His expertise spans public speaking, multimedia, directing, media and film production, broadcast, documentaries, television, post-production, Podcast, social media, entertainment and digital media.
