Site Specific

Performance series returns to the Design District

On Saturday, March 15 the Miami Design District will re-introduce its performing arts series, which launched with a bang last October.

Now known as the Site Specific Performance Series, the interactive evening will feature four 20 minute performances at three specific sites within the Design District.

Featured this month are acts from the Florida Grand Opera, New World Symphony and Miami Theater Center.

Program

FGO – Young Artist Program

Florida Grand Opera’s Young Artist Program will be center stage in the 4141 Building Atrium. The group has gained worldwide recognition as one of the leading operatic training programs in the United States.

For Site Specific, FGO will feature six of the current season’s Young Artists to perform a recital of some well know opera favorites.

8:00 PM – 8:20 PM
4141 Building
4141 NE 2nd Avenue

Paradise Motel

The Miami Theater Center’s SandBox Series will feature an excerpt from playwright Juan C. Sanchez’s original play, Paradise Motel.

From its heyday in the 1950s to its decayed present-day existence, a seedy motel on Calle 8 tells her life story. PARADISE MOTEL is seven short scenes, each one taking place in the same room of a motel, but in a different decade and with different characters, tracing the neighborhood’s evolution into Little Havana. The individual stories are provocative, entertaining and about love, sex, jealousy, death and hope — as pulpy as Miami itself. PARADISE MOTEL is written by Juan C. Sanchez, directed by Margaret M. Ledford, and developed by the Mangrove Creative Collective. PARADISE MOTEL is commissioned by Miami Theater Center as part of TheSandBox Series 2013-2014 and is made possible with the support of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners.

SCENE BEING PERFORMED:

In the scene entitled 1992: HURRICANE, two men, a young musician who’s been kicked out of his house by his girlfriend and a closeted Latino thug are holed up in a motel room – to escape their lives and to smoke crack – as Hurricane Andrew brews and rages outside.

8:40 PM – 9:00 PM
The Garden Building
175 NE 40th Street
(Private back entrance off NE 41st Street)

Juraj Kojs: The Visitor

Contemporary composer Juraj Kojs brings an excerpt from his recent performance at Miami Theater Center as part of The SandBox Series 2013-2014 to the Miami Design District.

In this sonic multimedia performance and installation, Juraj visits his distant relatives: a family of six hand dryers. Disclosing their inheritance secret, the piece boasts with humor and beauty hidden in various daily situations. Loaded with movement-sensing technologies, the human visitor invades the habitat of the machines, exposing them in their most intimate situations such as bedroom play and body art removal. The performance mediates the creator’s passion for making action-based music and performance with everyday objects and technologies. It is both absurd and realistic, interactive and fixed, poignant and funny, addressing the complex relationship between the humanity and its inventions.

Supported by Foundation for Emerging Technologies and Arts and Excel Dryer Inc.

9:00 PM – 9:20 PM
The Garden Building
175 NE 40th Street
(Private back entrance off NE 41st Street)

New World Symphony

The New World Symphony is dedicated to the artistic, personal and professional development of outstanding instrumentalists. The NWS fellowship program provides top graduates of music programs the opportunity to enhance their musical education with the finest professional training.

NWS will feature four of its fellows performing pieces from modern American composers, Pauline Oliveros and Phillip Glass. Following the performance, the fellows will join our night’s DJ for an improvised jam session.

9:30 PM
Rooftop Garden
The Garden Building
175 NE 40th Street
(Private back entrance off NE 41st Street)

Photos by Manny Hernandez