Blog: Beyond the Arsht Center Stage

Just ask Artistic Directors Sam Hyken from Miami’s Nu Deco Ensemble and Jennifer Weber from Brooklyn’s Decadancetheatre. Both artists collaborated for the first time to deliver a reimagined rendition of Vivaldi’s masterwork, The Four Seasons. Get a glimpse of the world premiere of The Vivaldi Project: 4, commissioned by the Arsht Center,  featuring Nu Deco Ensemble’s eclectic chamber orchestra and six, all-female hip-hop dancers from Decadancetheatre in this one of a kind, captivating performance!

The Adrienne Arsht Center rolled out the red carpet in celebration of its 10th annual Flamenco Festival Miami. Known as one of the Country's biggest celebrations of Spain's great art-form, Grammy nominees, telenovela stars and TV personalities came out for a dazzling night of Flamenco. Here's a look at what some of the stars had to say! 

Chef Allen Susser is giving diners a reason to say "TGIM!" The James Beard Award-winning chef is hosting Farm-To-Table dinners every Monday night at The Cafe at Books & Books at the Adrienne Arsht Center. The 5-course,vegetarian dinner features a different menu each week. We recently caught up with Chef Allen who took us into the kitchen as he prepared a delicious meal featuring greens from some of South Florida's local farmers. 

Mark your calendars for Saturday, September 9 and join us for ArtsLaunch, our FREE annual celebration kicking off South Florida’s arts season. Check out what 2016 was like and don't miss the 2017 edition!

For the 2016 election, the Arsht Center encouraged Miami to skip the lines and get their vote in early. We opened our doors for two weeks before the election as an official County-designated early voting site. Watch the video to see how Miami voters from around the County felt about casting their vote at the Arsht Center.

Check out the video to see how the Arsht Center broke records for Give Miami Day 2016.

A group of seventh graders from all over Miami were invited to contribute to the creative process of Kitty Hawk, the first STEAM-focused musical – in development now at the Arsht Center. The students and school system curriculum specialists collaborated with Arsht staff and Kitty Hawk playwright Tom Bryant, composer Erik Della Penna and Artistic Director Nathan Allen for the musical’s first workshop. Part performance, part curriculum and all inspiration, Kitty Hawk is the latest installment of the Center’s Learning Through the Arts partnership with Miami-Dade County Public Schools and will be performed – free of charge – to 25,000 young people. Here’s an inside look at the workshop.

Miami’s creative community gathered one recent Saturday morning looking for inspiration – and they certainly found it at the second annual ArtsTalk community conversation hosted by the Arsht Center. More than 80 guests dreamed, shared and conspired – and they did it together. Watch the video for a closer look.

5,000 people partied at the Arsht Center to celebrate its 10^TH BIRTHDAY PARTY. The all-day soiree, which took place on October 8, 2016, featured 10 hours of free performances, a blowout concert starring CeeLo Green, food trucks and family-friendly programming starting at 11 a.m. and continuing through the late evening.

For six weeks this summer, 100 Miami middle schoolers – age 11 to 14 – made friends and learned new skills at AileyCamp at the Adrienne Arsht Center. On August 6, friends and family watched their favorite AileyCampers show off new confidence on stage at the Knight Concert Hall.

The most powerful voices in opera soar in the Ziff Ballet Opera House. The Florida Grand Opera (FGO), a resident company at the Arsht Center, makes the most of the second largest performing arts stage in the United States. With three adjacent stages covering 17,420 total square footage, the main stage is 8,400 square feet, 38 feet high and 70 feet deep. So FGO can present spectacular productions, such as the opera's own Mourning Becomes Electra. But the best part of watching an FGO production at the Arsht Center is hearing the singers' gorgeous, big voices swell and fill the hall.

Miami City Ballet dancers Callie Manning and Christina Spigner appreciate the spaciousness and grandeur of the Ziff Ballet Opera House. But most of all, the ballerinas reveal, the Arsht Center feels like home.

Story Pirates, an improv troupe from New York, performs musical comedy inspired by stories made up by elementary school kids. Presented by the Center as part of its free Family Fest series, Story Pirates featured two stories created by Miami students, then helped all the kids in the audience make up a story on the spot. 

As part of Jazz Roots: Soundcheck, the educational component of the Arsht Center’s Jazz Roots series, 150 middle and high school students sat in on a real working soundcheck and were invited to a Q&A with the Pete Escovedo Orchestra at the Knight Concert Hall. The band surprised the young musicians by inviting some of the students to jam with the band on stage. 

Miami Mass Choir celebrated its 20th anniversary with a special concert at the Knight Concert Hall. Pastor Marc Cooper has led the 100-member choir at the Arsht Center during Free Gospel Sundays for the past six years. On December 13, 2015, the choir brought invited guests including Betty Wright and Beverly Crawford for a special concert that was recorded for an upcoming live album and video. Here Pastor Marc reflects on the relationship between Miami Mass Choir and the Arsht Center.

Ever since the beginning of their senior year at Miami Northwestern Senior High School, Sherrod Taylor’s friends have been listening to him rave about seeing the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Kinky Boots. Not only did he expect his friends to see his favorite musical at the Arsht Center in December, but he wanted them to come to a workshop for LGBT youth programmed by the Arsht Center’s Arts Education department.

What will Miami’s arts and culture look and feel like in 10 years? On Saturday, September 12, the Arsht Center hosted a conversation with artists and arts leaders from organizations large and small to discuss the future of the arts in our community. Hear predications from performing artist Teo Castellano of D-Projects, composer Sam Hyken of the Nu Deco Ensemble, arts advocate Mikhaile Solomon of Prizm Art Fair, and answer the call of Knight Foundation VP for the arts, Victoria Rogers, to find your place in Miami’s arts eco-system.

If you are sitting on a chair while reading this or scrolling on a smart phone or reading these words through a pair of glasses or contact lenses, then you are using an assistive device. That is a term commonly associated with wheelchairs, canes, prostheses, and hearing aids, but, in reality, every body alive depends on assistive devices to get through the day.

2,000 arts lovers dropped in at the Arsht Center for ArtsLaunch2015 this past Saturday, all for their own reasons.