Every year, "Here & Now" gets more intriguing. This is the 18th installment of the Knight Emerging Artist Series, a signature commissioning. "Here & Now: 2016" features a fresh wave of performance work by Carla Forte, Juraj Kojs, Jenny Larsson, Natalia Lassalle-Morillo, Charo Oquet, and Sandra Portal-Andreu on May 12-14; 19-21 at The Light Box at Goldman Warehouse in Wynwood.
Miami Light Project launched "Here & Now" in 1999, as the first program of its kind in South Florida dedicated to commissioning and presenting South Florida-based performance and multi-media artists. Since its inception, MLP has commissioned work from more than 90 South Florida-based artists, laying the foundation for Miami’s reputation as a cultural center of international importance. Over 40 of those artists have gone on to perform that work in 14 states and 15 countries for an estimated audience of over 20,000 people worldwide.
"Here & Now" performances encompass dance, theater, music, and story, but could just as easily feature collaboration with an experimental filmmaker or occur inside an installation. This year’s program features two distinct weekends of new dance, music and theater works that represents a broad cross section of the exciting and diverse talent in Miami’s field of emerging performance artists.
Here & Now: 2016
Weekend One
When: Thursday through Saturday, May 12 through 14, 2016 at 8 p.m. (doors open at 7 p.m.)
Carla Forte.
Carla Forte’s Emotional O is a performance and video work where emotions and memories converge to project what she is, what she was and what she'll be.
Sandra Portal-Andreu’s For: Shame From: ____ is a multidisciplinary work that examines the perceived social and cultural norms adhered by women for women. From the clothes they wear to the shape of their bodies, women are at constant odds with themselves and each other.
Juraj Kojs’ Bang for the Train engages thirty percussionists to perform his original compositions inside and outside of The Light Box while audiences navigate in the percussively saturated environment.
Weekend Two
When: Thursday through Saturday, May 19 to 21, 2016 at 8 p.m. (doors open at 7 p.m.)
LEFT: Charo Oquet. RIGHT: Jenny Larsson.
Jenny Larsson’s On the Other Side of the Lake is an exploration of mixed media/live performance where the main character is a lake - a body of water that connects memories, emotions and experiences. Jenny Larsson will use water as a common denominator in the work, as inspiration for dance movements and for storytelling.
Natalia Lassalle-Morrillo's Irma.
Natalia Lassalle-Morrillo’s Irma is a cinematic and performative portrait of one woman during three different stages of her life. Consisting of one moment that is repeated by the subject in these three different phases of his or her life, “Irma” will focus on the exploration of the enduring essence of the self.
Charo Oquet’s The Miami Flyers integrates installation with audience interaction, ritual, and performance to examine the relationship between Miami’s communities, most especially those with Haitian, Cuban, and Dominican citizens.
Within a theatrical immersive landscape, she will explore the tenuous line between memory, reality and fantasy.
The Light Box at Goldman Warehouse, 404 NW 26th Street, Miami FL 33127. Tickets: General Admission: $15-$25 Tickets available at www.miamilightproject.com or 305.576.4350
About The Artists
Carla Forte.
Photo by Alexey Taran.
Carla Forte is a performer, writer and director. She has directed video works like Staring at the Ceiling, Interrupta, Assassins for One Night, among others featured at venues such as: 10th Experiments in Cinema New Mexico in 2015; 10th Annual Film and Video Screenings Newark in 2015; 20th Cucalorus Film Festival Wilmington in 2014; 27th Festival Les Instants Vidéo Italy in 2014; Pool 14 Internationale TanzFilmPlattform Berlin in 2014; Art Screening at Trestle Gallery Brooklyn in 2014 and 21st Quinzena de Danca de Almada, Portugal in 2013. Her cinematographic work includes the documentary The Holders Official Selection 32th Miami International Film Festival; Short films Imaginarium and Reset, selected for Cannes Film Festival's Court Metrage - Short Film Corner in 2012 and 2013, respectively; as well as the feature Urban Stories, Winner of Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Feature Film at Bootleg Film Festival Toronto in 2012; and Honorable Mention at both Los Angeles Movies Awards in 2011 and Lucerne International Film Festival, Switzerland in 2012.
Charo Oquet.
Born in the Dominican Republic, Charo Oquet is an interdisciplinary artist, who works in multiple mediums, including metal, wood, textile, ceramic, photography, installation, video and performance. Oquet was awarded the Map Fund 2015 grant and was a finalist for the Miami New Times 2013 MasterMind Arts award. She is a recipient of grants from: Florida State Artists Fellowship Award; The State of Florida Artists Enhancement Grant in 2006; South Florida Cultural Consortium 2005 Visual and Media Artists Fellowship Award; South Florida Cultural Artists Access Grant and New Forms Florida Grant. Charo’s work is in the permanent collections of the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, Frost Art Museum, Florida International University, The World Bank, Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno, Bass Museum of Art, New Zealand National Museum, Dowse Art Museum, Govett-Brewter Art Gallery, Foresight Collection, and Museo de las Casas Reales.
Natalia Lassalle-Morrillo's Irma.
Natalia Lassalle-Morillo, A native of Puerto Rico, is a theater maker and filmmaker whose work integrates the disciplines of film, choreography and performance. She received her BFA from the Experimental Theater Wing at New York University. She has been an Artist-in-Residence at Inkub8 Open Space in Miami as well as at Glasshouse Project in New York City. Her creative work is about people, their madness, and confusion while living out their everyday lives. Her work has been shown in galleries and venues in Miami, New York and Puerto Rico.
Jenny Larsson.
Jenny Larsson is a performer, choreographer, and originally from Sweden. After graduating from the University of Dance and Circus in Stockholm, life and dance has taken her through Spain, Thailand and New York, before coming to south Florida in 2007. In 2012 she completed her Master’s program in dance at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is currently on the faculty at the Performing and Visual Arts Department of Broward College. As a choreographer she has performed her solo Dig Where You Stand in 2012 at Inkub8 in Miami, choreographed and directed Together Apart in 2012, a performance/happening shown on the rooftop of the Fountainhead Studios in Miami. Her work Look at how you’re looking at me when I’m telling you this, has been performed at Inkub8 in Miami and the Girls’ Club in Fort Lauderdale. At the moment Jenny is working on a three-part project called The Forest Diaries including a short film that was selected for Tigertail ScreenDance Festival in Miami in 2015, a multimedia installation presented at the Girls’ Club in Fort Lauderdale (December, 2014) and a dance performance presented by The Vanguard in Fort Lauderdale in 2015. In 2015 Jenny was one of the Grass Stains Initiative awardees, a grant that supports a site specific performance in Miami, premiering 2016.
Choreographer Sandra Portal-Andreu.
Choreographer Sandra Portal-Andreu is a Miami native of Cuban and Colombian decent. She received an A.A. from New World School of the Arts, a B.F.A. in Dance from Florida State University, and a M.S. in Movement Sciences from Barry University. She has trained with Fernando Bujones, Suzanne Farrell, Gerri Houlihan, Roxane D’Orleans-Juste and Thomas Richards at the Workcentre of Jerzy Grotowski in Pontedera, Italy. Her performance experience includes: Arts Ballet Theater of South Florida, Josee Garant Dance, Ballet Theater of Miami, Florida Grand Opera’s “AIDA”, Miami City Ballet’s “Lounge 2200”, Camposition and TOC Project. Sandra is faculty of the Theater Division at the New World School of the Arts where she concentrates on Movement for Theater. Sandra has presented work throughout Florida, Texas and Nassau, Bahamas. She recently produced and presented, “T.M.I. (Too Much Information)” in collaboration with Fuzion Dance Artists of Sarasota, Abi-Lity, Damian Rojo and Fernando Sosa in April 2015 at the RIFT Blackbox Theater. Sandra was also commissioned by the Miami-Dade Public Library-Main Branch to present a site-specific work that is being made for film and was presented during Art Basel 2015. Additionally, she is the resident choreographer for City Theater and has created original work for their Family Musicals Series and Summer Shorts Festival since 2010.
Juraj Kojs.
Juraj Kojs is a Slovakian composer, performer, multimedia artist, producer, researcher and educator permanently residing in the United States. Juraj’s works are continuously featured at festivals and conferences in Europe, Asian, and the Americas. Juraj's creative and research work reaches to the areas of music at the threshold of hearing, action-based acoustic and electroacoustic music, cyberinstruments created with physical modeling synthesis, tactile music, native instruments from central Europe, contemporary concert music, dance music, interactive audio-visual performance, muscle-powered multimedia, music with everyday objects and toys and graphic notation. Juraj is a co-founder of Foundation for Emerging Technologies and Arts (FETA) and the ensemble SofIA: Sonorities of Interactive Acoustics. He organizes 12 Nights and Acoustica 21 concert series at the Harold Golen Gallery in Miami. Juraj holds a PhD. in Composition and Computer Technologies from the University of Virginia. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Professional Practice in the Department of Music Theory and Composition at University of Miami's Frost School of Music.
