Artistically Social with Amy Rosenberg

Amy Rosenberg is an attorney and arts advocate who founded the Overtown Music Project and the Arsht Center’s young patrons group. She is the co-founder of the environmental non-profit Dream in Green. Amy is a member of Art Basel’s Junior Host Committee and sits on the Board of the Funding Arts Network. She also serves on the New World Symphony’s Friends Committee as well as The Wolfsonian-FIU’s Visionaries Committee.

Generally, when I go to a dark place, I turn to refrigerated Toblerone bars (my secret, delicious vice). Artist Jose Bedia, on the other hand, explores “perturbing and perverse collateral things” at Fred Snitzer Gallery. Here, reality is distorted and pirates, pimps and “the devil whole of Umbama” are all repulsive, compelling and sublimely vulgar. These works leave the viewer uneasy. From the chatter of the crowd, it seems that Bedia is going through a crushing emotional period (there was some talk of divorce) and the works are his trauma memorialized.

What happens when DJs like Trooklyn, The Brass King and Le Spam are given 30 minute back-to-back sets? Well, it’s Miami Light Project’s Dance Your @$$ Off annual fundraiser. The likes of Marlon Hill, Lauren Fernandez, Nancy Gelles and Annie Lord shook their booties to support MLP’s mission to support culture in Miami.

Before I attended Seraphic Fire’s “Treasures of the Mission Road- The Glory of Latin American Baroque,” I had not given much thought to the artistic traditions that developed in Central and South America hundreds of years ago. I have to thank Ruth and Marvin Sackner, two very special people with refined and eclectic tastes, who re-introduced me to this extraordinary group after I first saw them 7 years ago. The music reached soaring melodic heights and showcased “the glories of Old World Spain with the mesmerizing folk rhythms of the New World.” The selection was joyful, often humorous and beautifully sung. I’m in for a subscription next year.

My non-profit, Overtown Music Project, put on its annual Gospel brunch, One Miami, United, at Greater Bethel AME Church. 350 attendees representing Overtown, Brickell, Key Biscayne and Liberty City sang, held hands and dined on Yardbird’s delectable fried chicken and biscuits and red velvet waffles. The non-denominational service featured a Gospel Choir, musicians Cina, Bobby Stringer and Tree Top, who played in the heyday of Overtown, civil rights activists and the phenomenal hearing and deaf children from Speaking Hands. Ruth Shack, Bob Levy, Antonia Williams-Gary, Marcia Martinez and Ali Codina were in attendance.

Wolfsonian
I got to see my favorite part-time Miamian, Ashley Abess and dozens of conspiracy theorists at a riveting lecture on Cuba at The Wolfsonian. Intelligence expert Brian Latell spoke about “Castro’s Secrets: The CIA and Cuba’s Intelligence Machine.” The book, based on interviews with high level defectors from Cuba’s intelligence services, unveils long-buried secrets of Fidel Castro’s nearly 50 year reign. Latell revealed that Castro had knowledge of Lee Harvey Oswald prior to the Kennedy assassination.

Until next time…