Elizabeth Boone: The Light in the Miami Light Project
How does Elizabeth Boone balance motherhood and running MLP?
With a whole lot of love

By Gretel Sarmiento

	Elizabeth Boone, artistic and executive director of Miami Light Project

Elizabeth Boone holds her 4-month old son, Thomas, and instantly her face fills with pride. She stares at every single one of his movements and again, her eyes fill with so much love, so much joy. It is with that same love and pride Boone has run the Miami Light Project for eight years.

The Miami Light Project is a non-profit cultural organization that for 16 years has brought contemporary artists and their innovative performances and music to South Florida. The project wouldn't be possible without Boone, the woman who switches its light on.

“It's certainly the best job I've ever had, the most meaningful work I've ever done,” says Boone.

Boone took over the Miami Light Project in 1998, during what she calls an interesting time in the organization. Not only did they make a transition from the founding director to the future but also got new office space and their own performance facility/studio, The Light Box on Biscayne Blvd.

But before she ever thought of bringing a piece of every culture to South Florida, Mississippi-born Boone wanted to be an actress. Her love for the arts emerged with her mother, an aspiring singer, and continued growing after her parents moved to Washington D.C. Boone would often visit the Kennedy Center and the Arena stage , but her artistic thirst became insatiable. She studied ballet, gymnastics, and piano.

“I didn't stick with the piano, I didn't stick with the dancing, but it all kind of led to the road of the theatre,” Boone says.

And theatre was what she had in mind when she headed to college in Charleston, South Carolina, where she had a chance to witness first hand the Spoleto festival, which since its foundation in 1977 by Gian Carlo Menotti, has invited artists and performers of national and international acclaim.

Inspired by her exposure and taste of different rhythms, Boone went on to Brandeis University in Massachusetts to get a masters degree in acting and directing with the intention of moving to New York and starring on Broadway. She did move to New York, where she started a theatre company with her grad school friends, but the $200-a-week jobs didn't pay rent in New York. Luckily, in 1988 one of her friends got her a job in the AT&T foundation's Arts and Culture Programs where she had a chance to understand how to produce work, and implement artistic programs. She quickly fell in love with the behind-scene process.

“My life kind of started moving into this new direction,” Boone says. “Over time I have come to love that more than acting.”

It was the winter of 1994 and New York's climate that made Boone open a map, and with it a new chapter in her life. She moved to Miami, where she became the Associate Director of development for Florida Grand Opera and later the Executive Director of the Department of Cultural Affairs at Miami Dade Community College. During this time, Boone was approached by the Miami Light Project founding director to take on the job as its new artistic and executive director.

“I was really inspired by the challenge,” Boone says. “I had the opportunity to both maintain the programming that Miami Light Project has been so well known for, which is bringing artists from all over the world to our city, but I also had this incredible opportunity to really support and nurture the work of artists who live in our community, which is really my passion.”

Boone feels that her childhood experiences, from the visits to galleries and her appearances in high school plays, to her years as a struggling actress and waitress in New York City as well as her later jobs prepared her for the next step.

“Every one of those experiences helped me develop the skills that I think made me qualified for my job at Miami Light Project,” Boone says.

And though now her baby is the new light brightening her life, Boone hasn't forgotten about this year's productions.

“What drives me about my work, is that I feel a calling to find ways of connecting human beings that live in various countries through cultural and artistic projects,” she says. “They are the best ways of connecting people and communities.”

The Miami Light Project's season kicks off with Ethel, a New York based string quartet that has never been to South Florida, but whose live performances are quite known for inviting the audience to follow them through the specific site where they perform. This time, it will be the Miami Beach Botanical Garden where Ethel will delight spectators with their music while taking them on a tour of the garden. Other performances will include sax legend and Grammy lifetime achievement recipient Sonny Rollins, who Boone describes as a music giant, and Will Power with Flow, a show where story telling and poetry come together to tell about the importance of family and community bonds.

In addition to never-seen-before performances, there is also a variety of workshops and programs, such as Here and Now and Art on the Walls which allow Miami based artists to expose their work.

Among these programs there's also Miami Project Hip Hop, a forum designed to celebrate and educate the audience on this new movement that Boone believes represents our culture just like the hippies and the anti-war movement represented the 1960s.

“I love opera, classical music, ballet, but I'm knocked out by contemporary performing artists because I like risk taking,” says Boone. “I like innovation. I admire artists who are not afraid to question political realities in their work. I think contemporary artists do that the best and do it the most.”

And to provide South Florida audience with these artists, Boone has gone to great lengths, from court battles when the county opposed her plans to bring Cuban artists to Miami, to traveling to various countries seeking new artists. It was during one of these trips that she met a Cuban rapper who later became her husband and father of her baby.

For now, Boone will continue running the organization from home, which for the past months has become more like an office where she has meetings and makes phone calls while nursing and taking care of little Thomas, whose elongated fingers already promise him a place in the arts, perhaps as a pianist.

As for the future of the arts in South Florida, Boone says there's not much to fear.

“With the population changing it will be richer and richer,” she says. “The sky is the limit for artists here in South Florida.”

Boone knows hard times will come for the arts, but somehow the artists' perseverance to keep going and find ways to survive inspires her to take more risks, new challenges, and make Miami Light Project happen no matter how hard times get.