• Article

    Festive events for the holiday season

    Published December 15, 2014 by

    "The Nutcracker" performed by the Charlotte Ballet. Photo by Peter Zay This festive time of year brings lots of holiday happenings across the Queen City. If you are looking for some Christmas cheer or New Year’s mayhem, be sure to check out these events. For the...
  • Article

    Shaneeka Harrell is Cassius Clay

    Published December 15, 2014 by

    Artist Shaneeka Harrell takes on the role of Cassius Clay (a.k.a. Muhammad Ali) in a new dance theater work that is currently under development at Inkub8 (a Knight Arts grantee) as part of Thought Loom’s Synapse Performance Project (also a Knight Arts grantee). Shaneeka Harrell embodying...
  • Article

    Erik Howard brings the corner and the community together in unlikely ways through The Alley Project

    Published December 12, 2014 by

    Photo of Erik Howard by Marvin Shaouni. This article is cross-posted with permission from Creative Exchange. To read the abundance of news coverage coming out of Detroit over the last few years heralding the downtrodden city as a hotbed of creativity and innovation, attracting young creatives and start-up entrepreneurs from all over the country – the Detroit-is-what-you-make-of-it, "blank slate" narrative – one might be tempted to think that there was no such social activism or creative energy there prior to, say, 2009.   But while there have been innumerable socially-minded projects and organizations taking root in recent years, there are just as many that started planting their seeds years, decades even, before there was any promise that they might come to fruition.   Young Nation is one such organization, and it has grown organically since photographer and youth advocate Erik Howard and his collaborators started discussing an idea for a neighborhood-based group in 1999.
  • Article

    “Mi Casa Su Casa” opens at the Sandbox

    Published December 12, 2014 by

    Now that Basel is over, it's time to get back to Sandbox at the Miami Theater Center (a Knight Arts grantee) for "Mi Casa Su Casa," a multidimensional, cross-disciplinary performance installation produced by GodoyPradera Projects. GodoyPradera Projects. This will be the third iteration of "Mi Casa...
  • Article

    Let the Peter Marino exhibit mess with your head

    Published December 12, 2014 by

    Detail from Manolo Yllera, Peter Marino's "Double Portrait." While the highlights of Art Basel week usually include some of the top-quality artworks at the various fairs, this year two locally presented exhibits competed with the best of them. Unfortunately, “Auto Body,” a temporary exhibit in a...
  • Article

    A huge helping of Borscht awaits Miami film lovers

    Published December 11, 2014 by

    For decades now, the image of Miami has gone from retirement haven to paradise lost to playground of the world. It’s also sometimes viewed as a bit strange. Lucas Leyva wants to make sure it remains that way: weird. Leyva is one of the founders of the Borscht Corp., a collective of homegrown creative talents whose most visible and noise-making project is the biennial Borscht Film Festival, a cinematic celebration of an alternative Miami. This year’s edition runs Dec. 17-21 in various locations, including Adrienne Arsht Center’s Knight Concert Hall on the 20th. Every day a major event is scheduled to take place, along with many other smaller ones. In all, 12 feature films, 29 short films commissioned and aided in their development by Borscht, and many shorts made without Borscht involvement will be exhibited, a total of about 60 shorts across all of the programs, Leyva said.
  • Article

    Three Miami films to screen at Sundance Film Festival

    Published December 10, 2014 by

    By Fernando González, Miami-based arts and culture writer Underscoring the vitality and diversity of the independent filmmaking community in South Florida, three made-in-Miami films have been accepted to the prestigious 2015 Sundance Film Festival. They include: “The Strongest Man,” a feature by writer-director Kenny Riches; “El Sol Como un Gran...
  • Article

    Sticks & stones

    Published December 10, 2014 by

    By Regina Jestrow, AIRIE fellow Houston Cypress shows vintage textile to Regina Jestrow Walking the trails of the Everglades National Park with a bolt of fabric, pins and colored pencils, I wrapped tree trunks along the trails in muslin and rubbed until an impression appeared. Few...