Here and Now 2008

March 2008. Miami Light Project and the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County continue their collaborative efforts to support the growth and development of Miami artists as they team up once again to present Here and Now: 2008. A signature commissioning program of Miami Light Project, Here and Now annually offers a platform and venue for South Florida performance artists to create and present new work. The Arsht Center joined Miami Light Project as a commissioning partner in 2005.

This year’s program features world premieres from four dynamic woman artists who have been performing in and creating some of the most innovative work in Miami for the past several years: Teresa Barceló, Joanne Barrett, Diana Lozano and IIleigh Reynolds.

Teresa Barceló, currently a freelance performance artist, has been dancing her whole life. Beginning with flamenco and ballet, she has studied modern, jazz, West African, bellydance, contact improvisation, salsa, and, most currently, hip hop and aerial dance. For Z Minus, her first major commission, Teresa is exploring sleep – our need for, and inability to get, a good night’s rest – through dance and sound.

Joanne Barrett has been commissioned by Miami Light Project for Here and Now 2000 and 2005, FIU for the VH-100 Series, Karen Peterson and Dancers, Broward Community College, Tigertail Productions and the Good for Something Dancers. With her performance Off The Table she returns to the Here and Now stage with a cast of six dancers a saxophonist, bassist and percussionist, who will fluidly transform the stage into an abstract exploration of social behavior, codes of conduct and repression through movement, sound – and even a little baking.

Diana Lozano graduated from Cal Arts in Performance Art, Design and Technology through the schools of theater and Integrated Media. She currently teaches at the New World School of the Arts, where she studied musical theater. Founder and artistic director of the production company and the theatrical circus troupe, Circ X, she has traveled the globe producing, designing and performing. For Here and Now: 2008, Diana is developing Grotesque Burlesque, combining toilets, stripper poles and movement in a sensual and at times harsh exploration of self image.

Choreographer Ileigh Reynolds and company members of Animate Objects Physical Theater (AOPT) resurrect the quad roller skate for an exciting new work combining contemporary dance, aerial dance and roller-skating. With costumes by Diana Lozano of Circ X, Opposite Skate Direction joins together recreation, locomotion, competitive sport, art, vaudeville, social scene, disco, funk, punk rock, drive-in waitresses, military messengers, roller derby, Xanadu, Roller Boogie, and Roll Bounce in an explosive whirlwind.

Here and Now 2008 will be hosted at the Carnival Studio Theater of the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami. Performances dates and times are available by visiting the Center's website.

For more information, please call: 305.576.4350