16 November 5-11, 2026 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com NEW TIMES | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | Kickin’ it old-school LoveIsLove brings a free hip-hop block party to Miami Beach. BY CARLOS OMAR GARDINET O n Saturday, Nov. 7, Normandy Fountain will stop being a landmark and become a ci- pher. Vendors will gather in a loose ring. A DJ will drop a beat rooted in hip-hop’s earliest days. Some- body will step into the circle, and nobody will ask where they’re from, who they love, or how much money they have. There will be only one question, answered with the body: “Can you move?” That question gets to the heart of LoveIs- Love Miami, which returns to North Beach for its sixth year and fourth as an official hip-hop block party. The event is free, and more than 1,200 people have already RSVP’d. This year, it’s happening on a stripped-down budget. “Something from nothing,” says founder Dinna Alexanyan, with a mix of resolve and disbelief. “Which is absolutely what we’re doing.” Raised in California’s Bay Area, Alexanyan grew up loving the arts, especially dance, and had a natural aptitude for psychology. By 29, she was a licensed psychotherapist and had founded Sybarite Productions, a nonprofit supporting young artists. In New York, she worked as a teaching art- ist by day, saw psychotherapy clients by eve- ning, and produced events by night. That collision of art and psychology became the foundation of her work. LoveIsLove debuted in 2005 at Joe’s Pub and grew through larger venues, eventually landing at the Highline Ballroom with 200 to 300 dancers onstage and roughly 1,000 people watching. The showcase became a rite of pas- sage for dancers seeking their next opportu- nity. Alexanyan says performers who went on to work with Beyoncé, Missy Elliott, Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson have passed through its ranks. Over 21 years, Sybarite has helped employ more than 20,000 dancers. Alexanyan moved to Miami in 2014 and continued her New York showcases. During the pandemic, she launched LoveIsLove Worldwide: 24 countries, 24 hours, and an ambassador in each, raising money for roughly 400 artists. “A hundred dollars for someone in South Africa is like a big deal,” she says. LoveIsLove arrived in Miami in 2021 at the North Beach Bandshell, with local musi- cians and live painters. The following year, it moved to Normandy Fountain. Alexanyan wanted a space without barriers. “No walls,” she says. Then came 2023, hip-hop’s 50th anniver- sary. Watching block parties erupt across New York, Alexanyan wondered why Miami wasn’t throwing one of its own. So she made it happen. As far as she knows, LoveIsLove remains the only event of its kind in the city.“Thank God to David Sexton of Nor- mandy Fountain Business Association, which grants us every year support through provid- ing space, lighting, sound and production. We could not swing this otherwise and this type of support is invaluable,” adds Alexanyan. Alexanyan is emphatic about one distinc- tion: LoveIsLove isn’t a commercial rap show. Hip-hop, she argues, is a culture built on five elements: DJing, MCing, dance, graffiti, and knowledge. Organizing a block party without understanding those foundations, she says, would be like staging a Ghanaian festival without knowing Ghana’s history. Hip-hop’s original ethos was peace, love, unity, and having fun. It offered a nonviolent alternative to street gangs, turning limited re- sources into creativity, community, and men- torship. Its unwritten code was each one teach one. On Nov. 7, from 6 to 10 p.m., all five elements will converge in the open air. Rich Me- dina and Dante’s HiFi curate the music, DJ LS One headlines, and DJ Rogue spins for the dance battles, with Cyn Rose on the mic. With support from the Museum of Graffiti, UncuttArt and MDOTBLAKE will paint live. “Normandy Fountain is metaphorically a large cipher,” Alexanyan tells New Times. At the center is a $500 all-styles dance bat- tle, judged by Logistx, Staccato, and KingLxffy and hosted by DNA, also known as Dana. Alex- anyan praises Dana for spending her own money on cash prizes to keep the culture going. “Maybe someone who’s in a commercial world is going to see DJ Rogue,” Alexanyan says, “and be able to employ her on a com- mercial level.” A separate, ticketed afterparty at Bob’s Your Uncle features Jarobi White of A Tribe Called Quest and DJ Kumi. For years, LoveIsLove relied on three funding sources: Miami-Dade Cultural Af- fairs grants averaging about $6,000, Miami Beach cultural grants averaging roughly $9,000, and money from the North Beach Community Redevelopment Agency. The CRA funding arrived upfront, allow- ing the festival to pay four artists to create an installation at Normandy Fountain that stayed up for a year. County and city grants arrived months later and required matching funds, meaning $15,000 in grants translated into a $30,000 festival budget. Keeping the arts accessible while making the work financially sustainable has long been one of Alexanyan’s biggest challenges. Sponsorship is scarce, and arts funding is in- creasingly difficult to secure. Still, the grants meant artists who had do- nated their labor for years could finally be paid. “I can actually pay you,” Alexanyan re- calls telling them. “That was so beautiful.” This year, the financial structure buckled. Miami Beach declined to award its grant, a decision Alexanyan calls “a real stab to the heart.” Miami-Dade came through, but the CRA withdrew its support at the last minute, citing heightened scrutiny and directives not to fund anything art-related. Alexanyan says the overall budget has been cut by 70 percent. The annual art installation is gone. Live painters are donating their time, so she urges attendees to tip them or buy their work. The festival has prioritized payment for its dance battle host, DJ, and judges; other artists are contributing what they can. “We were back to where we were in the very, very beginning,” she says, frustrated, “where we were asking artists to do things for free, and it really sucks.” Alexanyan sees the cuts as part of a wider political climate in Florida, where scrutiny of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives has left arts organizations wary of how they de- scribe their work. She says some grant appli- cants have removed certain words to protect their eligibility. “We are literally the definition of DEI,” she says. For Alexanyan, the choice is stark: stand firm and risk losing resources, or keep quiet to keep serving the community. “That’s in- sane,” she says. “When we all need to vote and flip this around.” Beneath the funding battles is a deeper ar- gument shaped by Alexanyan’s background in psychotherapy: people need to belong. She invokes psychologist Abraham Maslow’s hi- erarchy of needs: after food, shelter, and wa- ter come connection and acceptance. For young people who can’t afford therapy or lack a safe place to express themselves, art can provide an outlet and a lifeline. Alexanyan estimates that roughly 10 per- cent of dancers in her showcases are home- less. Within their crews, they find people willing to offer emotional, spiritual, or mate- rial support. “People don’t allow them to be cold out- side,” she says. The crew becomes family. The circle be- comes shelter. It’s the same communal in- stinct that helped hip-hop’s pioneers redirect conflict into creativity, trading the street gang for the cipher. On Nov. 7, Normandy Fountain will be- come what Alexanyan has fought to preserve: a place where the culture belongs to every- body. From 6 to 10 p.m., the DJs will spin, dancers will battle, and artists will make something beautiful in public, whether or not a paycheck is waiting. That’s the paradox of LoveIsLove. The re- sources keep shrinking, but the circle stays open. The people who built this culture knew how to turn an empty lot into a gathering place, a rhythm into a movement, and a hand- ful of nothing into something the world couldn’t ignore. Now the question returns to the crowd. Can you move? LoveIsLove Hip Hop Block Party. 6 to 10 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 7, at Normandy Fountain, 7802 Rue Vendome, Miami Beach. Admission is free via eventbrite.com. [email protected] ▼ Music LoveIsLove Miami returns to North Beach for its sixth year and fourth as an official hip- hop block party. Photo by Dinna Alexanyan IT’S THE SAME COMMUNAL INSTINCT THAT HELPED HIP- HOP’S PIONEERS REDIRECT CONFLICT INTO CREATIVITY.