Roselle Gallery at the 31st International Ballet Festival of Miami: Where Visual Art Meets Dance

Roselle Gallery marked an important milestone in its cultural journey with its first official participation in the 31st International Ballet Festival of Miami, joining the celebration as an official sponsor and as part of the Festival’s Art Exhibitions Program.

In alliance with the Miami Hispanic Cultural Arts Center, the Gallery presented “Frida Mysticism,” a special visual art exhibition by acclaimed painter Esteban Machado Díaz, conceived as a tribute to Frida Kahlo and created specifically for this edition of the Festival.

The collaboration brought two artistic languages into the same space: the expressive power of contemporary Latin American painting and the movement, discipline, and poetry of classical ballet.

Frida Mysticism: A Dialogue Between Painting and Dance

At the heart of Roselle Gallery’s participation was an exclusive series of three one-of-a-kind works by Esteban Machado Díaz.

For this special presentation, Machado returned to imagery from his acclaimed 2022 collection “Frida, A Caribbean Dream” (Frida un sueño caribeño) and personally intervened each work with subtle, poetic elements inspired by classical ballet. Dancers emerge within the compositions as unexpected presences—figures of movement inhabiting Machado’s richly symbolic universe and establishing a visual bridge between painting and performance.

The result was not simply an exhibition about Frida Kahlo or an illustration of dance. Instead, Frida Mysticism created a new visual dialogue in which Frida’s symbolic universe encountered the elegance, movement, and theatricality of ballet.

Through Machado’s distinctive visual language, color, symbolism, memory, and movement converged, creating three works conceived specifically for the cultural context of the 31st International Ballet Festival of Miami.

Art Beyond the Traditional Gallery Space

From August 8 through August 16, 2026, Frida Mysticism accompanied some of the Festival’s principal performances across South Florida.

The exhibition was presented in the theater lobbies at the Moss Cultural Arts Center, the Amaturo Theater at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, and the Fillmore Miami Beach.

Rather than functioning merely as spaces of passage before and after the performances, the theater lobbies became temporary exhibition environments where audiences could encounter visual art as part of their experience of the Festival.

Visitors were invited to move from painting to performance, and from the symbolic world of Frida Kahlo interpreted by Machado to the expressive language of dancers on stage.

This encounter reflected an idea central to Roselle Gallery’s vision: contemporary art can extend beyond the conventional gallery setting and establish meaningful conversations with other disciplines, institutions, and audiences.

A Meeting Point for Artists, Collectors and Audiences

Throughout the Festival, Frida Mysticism became a meeting point for collectors, artists, art lovers, ballet audiences, and members of South Florida’s cultural community.

The conversations generated around the works were as significant as the exhibition itself. Visitors stopped to observe the pieces, share interpretations, learn about Machado’s practice, and discover the broader work of Roselle Gallery in promoting contemporary Latin American art.

For the Gallery, these exchanges reinforced one of the fundamental reasons for participating in cultural initiatives of this nature: art acquires new dimensions when it enters into dialogue with different audiences and artistic disciplines.

Celebrating Latin American Art Through New Cultural Dialogues

Roselle Gallery’s debut at the International Ballet Festival of Miami represented more than participation in a major cultural event.

It provided an opportunity to further the Gallery’s mission of creating platforms for Latin American artists to circulate beyond traditional exhibition contexts and to establish connections across artistic disciplines, communities, and cultural institutions.

By bringing Esteban Machado Díaz’s work into direct conversation with classical ballet, Frida Mysticism demonstrated how visual and performing arts can coexist and enrich one another without losing the individuality of their respective languages.

The Festival also opened the door to meaningful conversations with figures from the international art and cultural community, laying the groundwork for future collaborations and new projects.

As the curtain fell on the 31st International Ballet Festival of Miami, one chapter came to a close—but the journey initiated by Frida Mysticism had only begun.

Roselle Gallery extends its gratitude to the organizers of the International Ballet Festival of Miami and the Miami Hispanic Cultural Arts Center, as well as to every collector, artist, art lover, and visitor who experienced the exhibition and contributed to the cultural exchange surrounding it.

Because when artistic disciplines meet, new ways of seeing become possible.

Photography: Carlos Beltrán