Key West dance company brings lambada murder mystery to Tennessee Williams Theatre

Key West International Dance Company opened Long Live Lambada! at Tennessee Williams Theatre, turning the 5901 College Rd. stage into a Brazilian murder mystery and a test of how far the island’s arts scene can stretch beyond its usual bar-and-music circuit. The production runs through April 30 and is being brought back, the venue says, by popular demand after it wowed audiences in the company’s inaugural season.

At the center of the show is Pamela Stephenson Connolly, the company’s founder, who arrived full time in Key West in 2016 after a career that included ballet, comedy, writing and television. Connolly studied ballet and performed with London’s Festival Ballet Company, later renamed English National Ballet, before building a company that describes itself as dedicated to cultural diversity through dance. She said she first became fascinated by lambada 12 years ago after discovering it by accident, and that curiosity grew into the kind of theatrical production now filling one of Key West’s most prominent stages.

The story line follows Braz dos Santos, identified in the production as the world’s best real-life lambada dancer, who now lives in Key West. Verified background material says dos Santos has spent more than 35 years teaching and performing lambada internationally. The show uses his story to trace the dance from its roots in Brazil to the global wave that swept the world in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when lambada briefly became an international sensation tied to Kaoma and the wider Latin dance boom.

What makes Long Live Lambada! stand out is its scale and theatrical ambition. The Tennessee Williams Theatre listing calls it a “crazy, sexy” and wildly immersive celebration with world-class choreography, while Visit Florida Keys highlights stunning dance numbers, electrifying music by Gil Semedo and narration by Kirby Myers. The production folds in a Porto Seguro marketplace, a Brazilian soccer scene and playful choreography that even has dancers juggling balls, along with a local narrator who breaks the fourth wall.

Ticketing information for the April 28 performance listed a 7:30 p.m. start and prices from $69.84 to $111.44. For Key West, the show offers more than nostalgia for a once-global dance craze. It signals a company trying to build a broader cultural economy on the island, with international style, local talent and a high-gloss theatrical package designed to pull tourists and residents into the same room.