“Live Painting With Lebo!” at The Swamp. Photo by Michael D. Bolden. RELATED LINKS

“Miami Book Fair International kicks off with the weird and wonderful”  by Michael D. Bolden on Knight Blog, 11/17/14

“Miami Book Fair International opens Sunday” by Mitchell Kaplan on Knight Blog, 11/14/14

“Meet the Swamp: A place for all things Florida” by Lissette Mendez on Knight Blog 11/13/14

“PBS Brings Miami Book Fair International to National Audiences,” Press Release, 11/10/14

“PBS to livestream, cover Miami Book Fair International” by Lissette Mendez on Knight Blog 11/10/14

The 31st edition of Miami Book Fair International, staged at the campus of Miami Dade College in downtown Miami, opened Sunday with dance, poetry, radio and authors addressing serious topics. There was also serious fun at The Swamp, a popup lounge set up on one of the campus parking lots, including live painting to music, poetry karaoke and, it being Miami, a closing set by Suénalo, a Latin funk nine-piece band.

The Swamp includes an open-air space with a book sales tent, a food truck and a bocce court; a roomy, hangar-like performance space, with a stage and inside walls covered with art by local artists, a porch, and a beer stand with offerings from a South Florida microbrewery.

The project, a 2013 Knight Arts Challenge winner, is just one part of Knight Foundation’s support for the fair, which is expanding the reach of the event to include live-streaming and daily coverage by PBS, a children’s theater festival, a discussion on the future of publishing, and events with notable poets and National Book Award winners and finalists. But the Swamp, as the Miami Book Fair website says, is “part funky, part fancy—all Florida.”

And why not? Florida has captured the imagination of locals and visitors throughout its history.

It was the destination of Spaniard Juan Ponce de León in his search for the Fountain of Youth and the setting for the Marx Brothers’ absurdist classic “The Cocoanuts”; it was the locale for “Miami Vice” but it’s also the home of the Kennedy Space Center and Disney World.

The Swamp is a setting for residents and visitors to sample a variety of the richness and, yes, weirdness of Florida life.

On Sunday, before a very Miami crowd that included a sprinkle of skateboarders, tourists, families with kids, dedicated book lovers and at least a couple of mariachi band members impeccably dressed in black and silver, local artist David “Lebo” LeBatard turned painting into performance art. Working on stage, he completed a large canvas while a video was projected on screen and trumpeters Jason Lawner, Leonardo Madrigal and Ted Zimmerman played live alongside prerecorded tracks.

There was a brief welcome ceremony emceed by Mitchell Kaplan, a co-founder of the fair and chair of its board of directors, and including Tom Healy, executive director of the Center for Writing and Literature @ Miami Dade College. Fair co-founder and college President Eduardo Padrón was in the audience. Then it was time for Poetry Karaoke, presented by O, Miami, the month-long poetry festival supported by Knight.

You have not truly heard poetry until you’ve heard it read “to the best booty tracks from Miami,” as it was enthusiastically announced from the stage. The choices ranged from Langston Hughes (“I, Too, Sing America”) and Lewis Carroll (“Jabberwocky”) to Campbell McGrath (“Lincoln Road”) and, a perfect closing, Elizabeth Bishop’s “Florida.”

Elsewhere, there was a wide range of Book Fair events on Sunday, from a reinterpretation of radio interviews as dance pieces, with “This American Life” host Ira Glass and choreographer Monica Bill Barnes at the Gusman Center for the Performing Arts, to a discussion on “Marriage Equality: Redeeming the Dream” with attorneys David Boies and Theodore Olson.

The night’s activities even included “An Evening With Alexander McCall Smith,” author of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series. Smith took to the stage in one of the college lecture halls wearing a kilt and captivated the audience for more than hour of reading and conversation.

But the evening ended back at The Swamp, with a fitting set by Suénalo— the energy and blend of cultures in South Florida translated and distilled into music.

Fernando González is a frequent contributor to Knight Blog.

Check out the schedule for The Swamp and the rest of Miami Book Fair International at miamibookfair.com.