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    Another week stuffed with art

    Published February 10, 2015 by

    The London Police "Samurai Girl" at FAAM Urban Art Week. We can fairly call this mid-February period a mini Art Week – and really not so mini. Art Wynwood returns to Midtown, the Coconut Grove Arts Festival dominates further south, and Second Saturdays are in full...
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    ‘Knight Cities’ podcast rewind: 5 things to know about the arts and building community

    Published February 10, 2015 by

    Every week on our “Knight Cities” podcast, civic innovators join me to discuss ways we can create successful cities. Last week I spoke with Dennis Scholl, vice president for arts at Knight Foundation. Here are five things you should know from my conversation with Dennis: The arts can bind a community and bring it together. The only other ways that happens as powerfully in communities, generally, are during crises and through sports teams.
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    Power and poise in metal at Philadelphia Sculpture Gym

    Published February 10, 2015 by

    By far the most metal place in town this month is the Philadelphia Sculpture Gym, but not because of blast beats and chugging guitars. This Knight Arts grantee is showcasing its third process show of talented metal artists whose works are nearly as substantial as the imaginations behind them. Eroding,...
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    Knight Prototype Fund supports 10 new data & storytelling projects

    Published February 10, 2015 by

    Photo by Flickr urser r2hox. Each quarter, the Knight Prototype Fund supports small teams of media makers, technologists, designers and civic hackers to test new approaches to informing communities. In the last two years we have funded 130 projects through the program with broad experimentation in areas like tools for journalists, use of open data, support for the open Internet and new approaches to storytelling. Today we are happy to announce 10 projects that will join the 14 library prototypes announced in January as part of the Knight News Challenge. The Prototype Fund provides $35,000 in funding for a six-month sprint where teams are encouraged to better understand the unmet needs of their community and project participants through design research, rough prototyping and critical analysis. As part of their experience, grantees begin their journey with a workshop focused on accessible innovation methods. They present their progress on the initial prototype phase of their project at a demo day at the end of the six months.
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    Thumbs up: How to make it past the first round of the South Florida Knight Arts Challenge

    Published February 9, 2015 by

    Tatiana Hernandez provides tips to applying to the Knight Arts Challenge in this 2014 video. The “like button” on Facebook is society’s new approval rating. And, as Arts Program Officer Tatiana Hernandez said Wednesday night at Downtown Miami’s Cannonball headquarters, a thumbs-up rating also will likely get you past the first round of the 2015 Knight Arts Challenge South Florida. From the beanie’d to the yarmulke’d, from the dreadlocked to the white-haired, a diverse group packed Cannonball’s loft-like lobby to listen to Hernandez and learn about the process. (Cannonball is a multiple Knight Arts Challenge winner.) The local arts nonprofit hosted one of five community Q&A sessions designed to help South Floridians craft their most convincing applications for this year’s challenge, which is open through Feb. 23.
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    Charlotte Ballet’s “Innovative Works”

    Published February 9, 2015 by

    Four new works will premiere at Charlotte Ballet’s ever popular and exciting “Innovative Works” production. Choreographers David Ingram, Mark Diamond, Sasha Janes and Dwight Rhoden have all created new ballets for this season’s show. Only two weekends remain to experience them. "Peace Piece" by Dwight Rhoden...
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    “Jacqueries” and Cerveza de los Muertos

    Published February 9, 2015 by

    Four Cervezas de los Muertos, an order of guacamole and chips, a beef quesadilla and 80 bucks later, my friend and I headed over to The Carlton Hotel for "Jacqueries." Produced and presented by Knight Arts grantees FilmGate and Grass Stains, "Jacqueries" was "a political heist story told through movement...
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    A musical collaboration, across the miles

    Published February 9, 2015 by

    Michael Tilson Thomas workshops with the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra via Internet2 in NWS' 2015 Town Hall Master Class and Side-by-Side Concert. Photo courtesy of New World Symphony. The future was on display during a remarkable evening of music, education and technology at the New World Center in Miami Beach Wednesday night. Titled a “Town Hall Master Class and Side-by-Side Concert,” the annual event, part public workshop-demonstration, part concert, brought together this year the New World Symphony and students from middle and high schools in South Florida and beyond. It featured Michael Tilson Thomas, co-founder and artistic director of the New World Symphony;  marimba player Charles Comiter, from the A.W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts in West Palm Beach; clarinetists Daniel Bermúdez Tamayo, a student at the Academia Filarmónica de Medellín, Colombia; New World Symphony fellows; and music students from Medellín; members of the Metropolitan Youth Symphony in Portland, Ore.; and students from South Florida. The young musicians from  Medellin and Portland were participants in New World’s long-distance teaching programs. The South Florida players had auditioned for the Side-by-Side concert and, as part of the experience, were able to spend time, virtually and in person, working with New World fellows.
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    Cosi Fan Tutte: Appearances are deceiving

    Published February 9, 2015 by

    By Sebastian Spreng, Visual Artist and Classical Music Writer It’s not a farce or a comedy or, much less, a divertimento. To be precise, it is a tragic farce, a cynical comedy and a sinister divertimento, a metaphor that lays bare the human condition beneath a cloak of compassion that...
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    70-year career of Antoni Tapies opens at PAMM

    Published February 6, 2015 by

    Antoni Tapies's "Porta roja," 1995. The amazing aspect to "Tàpies: From Within" is the scope of the Catelan painter’s work. This survey of Antoni Tàpies’ 70-year long career, which started in the 1940s and ended with his death in 2012, just opened at the Perez Art...