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    Poesía cubana en O, Miami: muchas voces, una historia

    Published April 9, 2014 by

    Por las próximas semanas, la poesía será el lenguaje de Miami. Pero O, Miami , el festival de poesía de un mes de duración, apoyado por Knight Foundation, es una ambiciosa propuesta que va más allá de lo literario. Este año, el evento incluye un énfasis aún mayor en programas en español, un enfoque en alto relieve en los encuentros entre importantes poetas cubanos viviendo en los Estados Unidos y Cuba. Este año, O, Miami ofrece la oportunidad de escuchar voces como la de Reina María Rodríguez, ganadora en 2013 del Premio Nacional de Literatura de Cuba; Legna Rodríguez Iglesias, una de las principales figuras jóvenes en la poesía cubana; y el grupo multidisciplinario Omni-ZonaFranca. Pero el evento también incluye poetas tales como José Kozer, un nativo de La Habana que vive ahora en Hallandale, ganador en 2013 del  Premio de Poesía Iberoamericana Pablo Neruda ; y Yosie Crespo, nacida en Pinar del Río, Cuba, y ahora residente de Miami, quien en 2011 ganó el premio “Nuevos Valores de la Poesía Hispana” otorgado por Ediciones Baquiana y el Centro Cultural Español.
  • Article

    Cuban poetry at O, Miami: many voices, one history

    Published April 9, 2014 by

    For the next few weeks, poetry is the language of Miami. But the monthlong O, Miami poetry festival, funded by Knight Foundation, is an ambitious proposition well beyond the literary. This year, the event includes a greater emphasis on Spanish language programming, an approach highlighted by encounters among substantial Cuban poets living stateside and on the island. This year’s O, Miami offers a chance to hear voices such as Reina María Rodríguez, winner of the National Prize for Literature 2013 in Cuba; Legna Rodríguez Iglesias, one of the leading young figures in Cuban poetry; and the multidisciplinary group Omni-ZonaFranca, but it also includes writers such as José Kozer, a Havana native now a Hallandale resident, recipient of the 2013 Premio de Poesía Iberoamericana Pablo Neruda (the 2013 Pablo Neruda Ibero-American Poetry Prize); and Yosie Crespo, born in Pinar del Río, Cuba, and now a Miami resident, who won the “Nuevos Valores de la Poesía Hispana” prize awarded by Ediciones Baquiana and the Centro Cultural Español in 2011.
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    Choral music (and a quartet) for a sacred time

    Published April 9, 2014 by

    The Spektral Quartet. The Western world grows more secular every day, but the rhythms of our concert season are still linked to large religious observances, with things generally wrapping up in early spring with the arrival of Passover and Easter. Two choral concerts this week are...
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    Making movies the Miami way

    Published April 9, 2014 by

    By Juan Carlos Pérez-Duthie The work of up-and-coming Miami filmmaker Monica Peña is generating some serious heat. And that’s due to her cinematic debut, “Ectotherms,” a 65-minute feature film that takes this scientific term, which refers to cold-blooded organisms dependent on outside sources for warmth, and gives it a Miami...
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    Investing in the people who are rebuilding Detroit

    Published April 9, 2014 by

    Photo credit: Flickr user Brian Ambrozy. Detroit’s rebirth is not just growing new businesses, new buildings and new possibilities. It is growing new leaders. The people behind the multitude of exciting and complex efforts underway are true assets. Recently, Knight Foundation and Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan created a program to leverage that.  It expands an initiative included in a $300 million package from government and foundation leaders last fall to make new investments in Detroit. Knight agreed to put $250,000 toward a capacity building training program to support staff from key nonprofits and city employees who are working to make things happen in Detroit. This week, we announced how we would allocate those funds. Working with the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, Knight advisers considered a pool of over $750,000 in requests. We oversaw the process, and while the number of requests was impressive, the quality impressed us even more. The individual stories of leaders were so compelling, in fact, that Knight Foundation has decided to invest a total of $400,000 in the project.
  • Article

    Making movies the Miami way

    Published April 9, 2014 by

    Above: Sundance Knight Fellow Monica Peña. Photo credit: Flickr user Miami Film Festival. The work of up-and-coming Miami filmmaker Monica Peña is generating some serious heat. And that’s due to her cinematic debut, “Ectotherms,” a 65-minute feature film that takes this scientific term, which refers to cold-blooded organisms dependent on outside sources for warmth, and gives it a Miami spin. The “ectotherms” in Peña’s movie are this city’s culturally cross-pollinated and disaffected youth. Shot locally over just five days, with no budget, no script (other than the director’s conceptual guidelines) and with a cast of non-actors, “Ectotherms” had its world premiere at the recently held Miami International Film Festival. Then, Variety, one of the most respected entertainment industry media outlets, ran a glowing review of the movie. That a seemingly noncommercial movie like this one can elicit such positive response is encouraging to South Florida’s independent film community—and reinforces the position that you don’t need to move to Hollywood to make interesting cinema. “Knight Foundation grantee Lucas Leyva said something really smart a while ago,” remembers Dennis Scholl, Knight Foundation’s vice president for the arts. “He said, ‘You can go to L.A. and pull cables on somebody else’s film, or you can come to Miami and make your own film.’ That has resonated with a number of very interesting, young, dynamic, independent filmmakers, and Monica represents that. She’s chosen to come back here, try to find a way, make the film she wanted to make, and the results are astonishing.” The 31-year-old Cuban-American director and writer was born and raised in Miami. She attended UCLA film school but never doubted that she needed to be in Miami to give life to her creative vision. “Whether intentionally or not, what’s coming out in a lot of the works from here is sort of this intersection of cultural heritage,” Peña says, “where our connections to our families’ past and culture have been transplanted and transformed here. That intersects with this experience of … growing up in an urban environment and the hardships that can come with that. And then, that also intersects with this very particular landscape that is like no other landscape in the world.”
  • Article

    Creative community connections bloom in Macon, Ga.

    Published April 9, 2014 by

    Photo credit: Molly McWilliams Wilkins The arrival of spring didn’t just bring the flowering of cherry blossoms to Macon, Ga. Artist Hunter Franks spent three weeks here recently sowing new ideas on how to better connect residents of this friendly historic city to build a better future. It was the first stop of his Creative Interventions Tour, a project supported by Knight Foundation that will expand this year to other communities where Knight invests, including Akron, Ohio, Detroit and Philadelphia. Many of the projects centered on bringing together people who because of geography or other divisions rarely interact, everything from collecting postcards detailing why people love their neighborhoods and sending them across town to strangers, to a free community potluck, to creating an “I love Macon” wall from a blank construction space on a busy street. The events culminated in a cocktail party, where a leader was announced for the new Macon Chapter of the League of Creative Interventionists, a way of preserving the spirit of using artistic expression to build community. Mark Vanderhoek, leader of the nonprofit Macon Roots, was named as the chapter leader during the event celebrating the weeks of work. “I see this role is to be a facilitator,” Vanderhoek said. “I think a lot of people in this room see how this can move the community forward. We can change the conversation through our actions.”
  • Article

    O, Miami takes on art

    Published April 8, 2014 by

    Artists and writers alike need to pin-up their poems. There are so many cool things about the O, Miami poetry festival (a Knight Arts grantee), not the least of which that it crosses many genres and lasts a whole month (April). Now in its third incarnation,...
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    Buckminster Fuller flourishes at FringeArts and beyond

    Published April 8, 2014 by

    Inside the repurposed, post-industrial behemoth of the FringeArts headquarters this past Friday, April 4, one would perhaps not easily make the connections to the legendary Buckminster Fuller and his elegant, geodesic domes. Director Sam Green, however, has more than enough associations and anecdotes to offer with his screening of “The...
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    Charting a course for downtown San Jose, Calif.

    Published April 8, 2014 by

    Egon Terplan is regional planning director of SPUR, a century-old nonprofit founded in San Francisco that promotes good urban planning throughout the Bay Area. Knight supported SPUR’s expansion to San Jose, a Knight community, in 2012. Photo by: Sergio Ruiz, courtesy SPUR. A great city begins in its downtown. It sets the tone. People come downtown to celebrate, grieve and protest. They come to work and play. But what is the right strategy when the downtown of the 10th-largest city in the country, home to more than a million people, has less than 40,000 jobs, 10 percent of its own city’s job base? What if that downtown is located in a region with two other major urban centers – San Francisco and Oakland – each with a much larger and more established downtown and an ability to build high-rises? This is the case of downtown San Jose. It is neither small enough to navigate easily nor large enough to draw significant crowds on a regular basis. Its tallest towers top out at about 20 stories as downtown lies in the flight path of the nearby airport. But it’s also the urban anchor of Silicon Valley, with its wide scattering of jobs, homes and entertainment.  
  • Article

    New tips from the Giving Day Playbook on 24-hour online campaigns

    Published April 8, 2014 by

    Photo credit: GiveMN.org via Facebook. Last year, Knight Foundation published the Giving Day Playbook, a soup-to-nuts guide to 24-hour online campaigns that community foundations are increasingly organizing to promote local philanthropy. Now, with foundations across the country participating in Give Local America on May 6, we have refreshed the playbook with new insights to help in the planning. What’s the best way to recruit and train volunteers on a Giving Day? How can you encourage donor-advised fundholders to participate? And how do you handle a tech glitch—or even a systems crash? Over the past year, we have worked closely with 19 community foundations in cities where Knight invests and gleaned insights on these issues. Today, we are excited to share them. These additions, created by our partners at Third Plateau Social Impact Strategies, complement the existing playbook content, which includes recommendations, checklists and templates for everything from early planning to post-campaign analysis.