The Bas Fisher Invitational’s Super 8 movie night from earlier this month was such a resounding success that the artist-run alternative space is having a repeat of the event tonight at 7:30 p.m. Hosted by local artists, Barron Shearer and Kevin Arrow, it’s the only movie night in town that screens their films on vintage and obsolete Super 8 format, you’re surely in for a unique experience. Continue reading 'Alternative Space Weekend'
Artist Irene Albalat displays her blooms at Surfside Arts Festival
Get creative and impact your community courtesy of Sweat Records’ recently launched music video contest. The indie shop is hosting a national contest to crete a new video for local artist Rachel Goodrich's “Light Bulb” track. Goodrich has been touring nationally & had the song used in a Crayola commercial, but needs your help. Download the track here for inspiration, create a visual accompaniment for the song, upload it to YouTube, email it to info@sweatrecordsmiami.com and keep your fingers crossed you’re the $500 winner. Get all the details here – good luck!
Kennedy Center president Michael Kaiser visited Miami last month as part of his 50-state Arts in Crisis Tour. The Knight Foundation's Miami program director Dennis Scholl had the pleasure of moderating a conversation with Kaiser, focusing primarily on how to best utilize boards, crafting five-year artistic plans and the importance of marketing. Bottom line? Begin with the work (it's why all else exists), market it, develop a constituency and build revenue. Intrigued? Click here for details.
An overhead view of destruction in Port-au-Prince.
There has been a tremendous response of physical aid and monetary assistance to the tragedy in Haiti, and the musical community has been an important part of it.
The national Hope for Haiti telethon featured a good deal of music during its broadcast, and tonight, the Cleveland Orchestra and New World Symphony will join in a concert called Musicians for Haiti. Conductors Franz Welser-Möst and Teddy Abrams will lead an elegaic program that includes the Barber Adagio for Strings and the Nimrod variation from Elgar's Enigma Variations, as well as Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony.
Proceeds from the Lincoln Theatre concert (tickets are $35) will benefit a group called Partners in Health, a Boston-based organization that has been working in Haiti for more than 20 years, and employs 11,000 people around the world in the communities it serves.
Continue reading 'Orchestras, Soloist Turn Talents to Haitian Relief'
Sadly, 2008 KAC winner the Upper Eastside Garden is shutting its gates to the public on Feb 29. Celebrate the Garden’s success at a closing party January 30 from 6-10pm. The party will feature a screening of a new video by artist Natalia Benedetti, free admission and complimentary Grolsch beer & illy coffee. See the flyer below for more info.
The UEG will be open through February Saturdays and Sundays from noon-6pm. For more info click here.
Last month a handful of Design District galleries and art spaces such as Locust Projects, Spinello Gallery, and Dimensions Variable, opted out of the Second Saturday celebration, opting instead to have their openings on the third Saturday with successful results. Earlier this month, inclement weather drove down traffic in the Wynwood area, where receding crowds at Second Saturday Art Walk already seem to have become a trend. Continue reading 'Second Saturdays on the Decline?'
Gwendolyn Lai (left) and Kim Ehly mix it up in "The Hour of the Tiger"
Why do I love Miami? Because this weekend I stayed home on Friday night, and still managed to dance to live rara and zouk music at the Haiti Mizik Relief benefit on Saturday afternoon; flip out to contemporary Finnish spectral music played by the New World Symphony on Saturday evening; then on Sunday afternoon watch the world premiere of Sandra Riley's The Hour of the Tiger, a play about queer romance in Japan, at New Theatre.
Rain kept the crowds away from Haiti Mizik, nestled at the southern end of Bayfront Park near the fountain, but the clouds lifted as Papa Loko and Loray Mistik called to the gods and donors to relieve Haiti's suffering. By the time Suénalo! took the stage, in one of the tightest sets I've heard the band play in years, the dance floor was filling up and hopefully the donation boxes too. The salsa-afro-pop-funk was so sweet I did not want to leave, but Finland was calling.
Miami Heat game traffic, a raised drawbridge, and a parking structure filled by comedy fans conspired to keep me from the first piece on NWS's Finnish program, but I settled into my seat just in time to hear a piece composed by the "father of spectralism," Tristan Murail (wait, he's French; how did he sneak into Finnish night?). Guest conductor Susanna Malkki should be commended just for being able to manipulate the manuscript of Murail's score. Yet somehow, between flipping enormous pages, she managed to draw out the warp and woof of Murail's "Godwana," immersing us all up in a thick tapestry of sound.
After all that, New Theatre's production of "The Hour of the Tiger" seemed like a little light music. Though the play offers not one but two cross-cultural, cross-racial queer love affairs in 1970s Tokyo, complete with swordplay and an impaling on a decorative fan, the tone and dialogue of Sandra Riley's show was oddly casual. I complained a few years back when New Theatre presented "Just a Kiss" (Catherina Bush) that a simple smooch between two chicks was hardly the dramatic stuff of an entire play. Yet Riley somehow both ups the stakes in same-gender necking (The fate of love is sealed by a first kiss, a putative ancient Japanese saying tells us) and plays it out on stage as no big deal. There's talk of "ying and yang" as the American characters explore Japanese culture, but the productions mixing of easy banter with melodramatic sentiment comes off as confusing. Think Madame Butterfly meets The L Word.
Ah, but what was I saying? Cultural contradiction is what I love about Miami.
New World Symphony joins forces with the Cleveland Orchestra to offer Musicians for Haiti on Wednesday, January 27 at 8pm at the Lincoln Theatre, 541 Lincoln Rd, Miami Beach; $35; www.nws.edu.
"The Hour of the Tiger" runs through February 14 Thursday - Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday at 1 pm at New Theatre, 4120 Laguna Street, Coral Gables, 33146; $35-$40; 305-443-5909; www.new-theatre.org.
Step inside the vibrant, animated world of the Young at Art Children’s Museum. The 2008 Knight Arts Challenge winner is building a permanent art museum for children on 11.75 acres in Broward county. Executive director Mindy Shrago, volunteers and museum goers share their plans, experiences and hopes for the museum
Young at Art of Broward is currently located at 11584 W State Road 84 in Davie. For more info visit youngatartmuseum.org or call 954-424-0085
Be sure not miss Abracadabra this Friday at the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, an exhibition and raffle/fundraiser featuring over 100 works of art.
The show has been up since January 23, and come Friday night you have the opportunity to enter a raffle contest for pieces from the exhibition. Names of ticket holders will be drawn at random. The first name picked gets the first choice of any work within the show. The next name drawn gets the next choice, and so on. Admission is $30. Raffle tickets (which include admission) range from $375 to $1,000. Continue reading 'Abracadabra'
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