By Marly Falcon, Knight Foundation
Sunday concluded the Miami run of Platanos & Collard Greens, a love story between an African-American man and a Latina who are confronted with racial and cultural prejudices from family and friends. The Knight Foundation's Marly Falcon weighs in with her reactions to the show...
Continue reading 'Platanos & Collard Greens - A Second Look'
It's uncanny: whenever a New York play about race comes to Miami, the issues are so similar, yet so different. Sometimes the differences are glaring, like that play about La Lupe where the star blackened her face for the Miami performance but for the New York performance you bet she didn't. The differences were more subtle in Platanos and Collard Greens, a thoughtful comedy about a star-crossed love affair between a Dominican girl and an African American boy that played to full houses at the Arsht Center over the past two weekends. Continue reading 'Platanos and Collard Greens'
If I had my way, live theater and dance would be programmed throughout the day and night, all week long, just like the movies. Augusto Soledade did his part to make my dream come true by scheduling a Brazz Dance Theater performance at 2:30 last Saturday afternoon at the Area Stage Theater in Coral Gables (in a strip mall on US 1 where I used to watch movies back in the day).
Choreographer Soledade's new piece, Kayala, featured explosive movement and lovely moments of contact among the dancers. This beautiful new piece tells the story of how the daughter of Yemanja, the Afro-Brazilian deity of the sea, came to an earth in eternal daylight, fell in love with a man, and summoned night for the first time to the human realm. Throughout the program, Soledade came on stage to give background on what we were about to see. His explanation of Kayala was helpful, since his piece does not literally represent these events. Instead, the movement is meant to convey divine curiosity and later passion for human kind and the power of the elements.
Yet a certain strip-mall-in-the-middle-of-day lethargy blunted the impact and gave the affair the air of a lecture demonstration. The dancers executed the steps with technical skill, especially Liony Garcia and Ilana Reynolds. Yet their emotional expression did not match the power of Soledade's choreography. It was telling that the most expressive moment on stage was when the cast bowed at the end, when they dropped their intense concentration and simply connected with the audience. It made me wish they'd been there with us all along.
Miami Light Project managing producer Rebekah Lengel checks in with an update on the 2010 Here & Now program...
21-year-old nonprofit, Miami Light Project launched the Here & Now commissioning program 11 years ago with the belief that investing in the artistic talents of Mimi-based performance and media artists would have great returns- not just on the individuals directly impacted in the artistic community, but on establishing Miami as a cultural destination of great talent, artistic excellence and diversity.
This Sunday the Miami Art Museum opens Between Here and There, an exhibition of the museum’s permanent collection. Gearing up for the move to Museum Park, this marks the first ever long-term display of the MAM’s growing permanent collection, which should stay up with periodic changes well into the year 2013.
J.S. Bach (1685-1750).
Peter Schickele once wrote that he'd be happy to give up some J.S. Bach cantatas for a few more Brandenburg concerti, even though he knew that was as close to heretical a statement as you could make.
Beginning Friday, you can have both, when the Firebird Chamber Orchestra begins its Brandenburg Concerto project, playing all six of these timeless works over a three-year period. This weekend's concerts also include one of the cantatas, as well as the best-known of the orchestral suites.
The program for the weekend has changed somewhat from earlier announcements. We'll hear Concerto No. 3 in G, notable for its brevity and catchiness, and No. 5 in D, singular because it really is a harpsichord concerto more than anything else (Olukola Owulabi, a Canadian-born professor at the University of Syracuse, will do the honors for the Firebird).
We'll also hear the Cantata No. 84, Ich bin vergnügt mit meinem Glücke (I am content with my fate), with soprano Kathryn Mueller as soloist. The concert is rounded out with the Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B minor, which is famous for its Badinage final movement, a staple of the flute repertoire.
Continue reading 'Concert Will Explore Secular, Sacred Sides of Bach'
Earlier this month Friends With You, the internationally known Miami-based multidisciplinary art collaborative known for their toys and installations that serve to blur the line between fine arts and commerce, launched a new revamp of their www.friendswithyou.com website.
In Miami, we hear so much about art revitalizing communities that the words get a little worn. But sometimes you have to leave home to appreciate what you have. Right now I'm in Syracuse, New York, where I'm burrowed under a comforter and wearing two scarves, while in an ostensibly heated house. The cold is the least of Syracuse's problems: this is a city I literally had to be paid to visit (I'm here on a grant to do some research in the Syracuse U. library). Locals at a cocktail party I attended Saturday night referred to their city as Toilet Town. Yet somehow Sunday morning, I found a pearl: Sugarpearl Cafe. Continue reading 'A Sugarpearl in Syracuse'
Friday night opens a new exhibition at the Carol Jazzar Gallery in Miami Shores. The show is titled between and features work by Miami-based artist Lynne Golob Gelfman.
Gelfman’s paintings for this show take on chain link fences for subject matter, with the artist endlessly layering the canvas with image after image of chain link patterns. The patterns begin to overlap and seemingly trail off from one another creating an eerie, ghost-like imagery. Strange perceptions of depth and spatial distortions begin to manifest themselves within the work creating kinetic visual effects within the viewer. Continue reading 'This Weekend….'
MIAMI (Feb. 19, 2010) The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is now accepting applications for the Knight Arts Challenge, a community-wide contest that aims to bring South Florida together through the arts. Have a big idea for the local cultural scene? Submit it through March 15 at KnightArts.org.
Artists and art advocates interested in applying for the challenge’s third round also are invited to a town hall meeting at 5:30 p.m. March 9 at the Little Haiti Cultural Center, 260 NE 59th Ter. Miami Program Director Dennis Scholl, who leads the challenge, will answer questions.
“Dream big. We want your ideas to push the envelope and enrich this community culturally,” Scholl said.
Continue reading 'Knight Arts Challenge Opens Contest, Hosts Town Hall Meeting'
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