2012 Knight Arts Challenge Miami Finalists

Just announced last night, here is a list of the 57 Knight Arts Challenge Miami finalists for 2012.

• 6th Street Dance Studio/WholeProject: To broaden and support the TruSchool Hiphop program for kids by incorporating new forms of dance, writing and cultural events.
• 826 Miami: To provide an engaging after-school option for kids by bringing a national model to Miami that turns storefronts into free creative writing centers funded by the sale of local artistic goods
• Actors’ Playhouse Productions: To culturally enrich Miami-Dade Schools ninth grade students by making 3,000 seats available to the Tony winning musical In the Heights, coupled with a rap-writing contest
• Andrea Askowitz: To give a voice to more Miami stories by coaching underrepresented members of the community to present a spoken-word performance about their experiences
• Ann Kelly: To enhance the capacity of Miami’s local theater community by establishing a cooperative scene shop where artists can collaboratively build sets, store props and share expensive tools
• Art and Culture Center of Hollywood: To share the work of dynamic, national visual artists by hosting an ongoing lecture series
• Arts for Learning/Miami: To provide opportunities for high-school students to pursue their interests in the arts while also learning essential work skills by offering six-week paid summer art internships and apprenticeships
• Bass Museum of Art: To use the arts as a catalyst to promote creative thinking by expanding the popular IDEA@thebass program, which helps bring the classroom to life for young students
• Borscht Corporation: To increase Miami’s leadership role in the indie film community by expanding the Borscht Film Festival to help it become the epicenter of regional filmmaking
• Brazz Dance Theater: To build Miami’s reputation as an emerging center for contemporary dance by creating new works, helping dancers develop professionally and launching a Brazilian dance festival
• Centro Cultural Español de Cooperación Iberoamericana Miami: To bring Spanish theater into the community by offering a series of exciting yet short plays to small audiences in a unique venue – a 150-square foot shipping container
• Classical South Florida: To showcase local students’ classical music abilities and talent by having high-schoolers compete to perform live on Classical South Florida Radio
• Coral Gables Cinemateque: To bring high quality, unique and culturally diverse films to the community by increasing programming and educational outreach at the theater
• Coral Morphologic: To put Miami on the map as an eco-arts-tourism-destination by creating an underwater sculpture park installation featuring works by local artists
• Creative City Collaborative DBA Arts Garage: To facilitate an exchange of art and ideas by presenting contemporary musical performances, films and visual art exhibitions at a Palm Beach collaborative
• Cultural Foundation of Broward: To connect local cultural projects to donors by bringing to Broward County power2give.org, which allows cultural organizations to crowd-source funding for specific projects
• Cuqui Beguiristain: To help brand Miami’s Bird Road Art District, an industrial turned artistic neighborhood, by creating a series of conceptual pieces and murals that will serve as both an outdoor exhibit and an art marker to interpret the area
• Dance NOW! Miami: To help bring under-resourced dance productions to the performance stage by providing a venue and marketing help for choreographers and dancers to engage with new audiences
• Deering Estate Foundation: To bring a meaningful cultural dialogue between artists and audiences by supporting a performing art series and a residency opportunity that includes  lectures and master classes at the estate
• Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden: To bring together nature and art by strengthening Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden’s music program under conductor Teddy Abrams
• Florida Grand Opera: To engage new audiences in the opera by simulcasting free performances outside at the New World Center in Miami Beach
• Frank Falestra: To encourage South Florida musicians to produce innovative compositions by giving them the opportunity to perform and network with modern composers at an experimental music event
• FUNDarte, Inc.: To strengthen the local performing arts by providing seed funding for new works for local companies and artists
• General Practice: To promote experimental, cross-disciplinary art by strengthening an artist-run gallery where performance, visual art and music are presented beneath one roof
• Indie Film Club Miami: To build and strengthen Miami’s film community by hosting workshops and screenings and by promoting filmmakers’ work locally and nationally
• LAB Miami: To bolster innovation in the arts by bringing together creative professionals and techies for a three-day art hackathon, where they will develop apps and websites that answer one question: how do we enhance the delivery of local art to users?
• Logic Art Miami: To help local artists show their work nationally and abroad by defraying shipping and crating costs that typically discourage exhibitions outside South Florida
• Miami Children’s Museum: To create a landmark at the gateway of Miami and Miami Beach by installing an educational light sculpture on the entrance wall of the Miami Children’s Museum
• Miami Dade College: To celebrate and preserve the arts and culture of Hialeah – Florida’s fifth largest city – by supporting the opening of the Hialeah Cultural Center
• Miami International Airport: To engage and connect audiences to global and local rhythms by presenting performances of world music to travelers at Miami International Airport
• Miami Light Project: To support emerging artists by creating an artist-in-residence program as part of the annual Here & Now Festival, which commissions and presents local works
• Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs: To celebrate native talent by presenting a Bring it Home Miami series at the South Dade Cultural Center featuring artists from South Florida who have developed national and international reputations
• Milo Fox: To celebrate the art of puppetry by restoring a 1930s-era marionette theater and presenting performances to underserved children in parks, schools and theaters
• The Miami Symphony Orchestra: To help develop South Florida’s musical voice and infuse the symphonic repertoire with new energy by commissioning works through a composer-in-residence program
• [NAME] publications: To promote innovation in the arts by producing books that feature local artists who work across disciplines
• Nancy St. Leger: To introduce new audiences to Haitian dance by creating a professional folkloric ensemble
• O Cinema: To build a sense of community in Wynwood by presenting an outdoor, family-friendly film series that seeks to bring residents together with the people who visit and work in the neighborhood
• Opa-locka Community Development Corporation: To celebrate the art of the African diaspora by producing a multidisciplinary juried arts festival to coincide with a major public art installation in Opa-locka
• Open Lab: To foster the local film scene and build community among filmmakers by creating a monthly, guerrilla-style gathering where producers screen their films in a variety of locations
• Pablo Malco Foundation: To celebrate South Florida’s vast cultural traditions in a Hip Hop Symphony that combines dance and music in a show for all ages
• Paula Kolek & Neil de la Flor: To promote Miami as a center for LGBT literature by creating a Reading Queer series for writers who create hybrid, genre-bending works
• Performing Arts Center Trust: To provide more exposure for emerging artists by expanding the Adrienne Arsht Center’s Miami Made festival to include all artistic genres
• Pinecrest Gardens: To give local groups the chance to perform in a historic amphitheater by creating the Arts in the Gardens series at Pinecrest Gardens
• Ranjana Warier: To promote cross-cultural understanding by showcasing Indian Classical dances through adaptations of western fairy tales
• Sweat Records: To help make Miami a musical destination by providing a stipend for touring acts to provide free or affordable concerts for an all-ages crowd
• The Artisan Lounge: To strengthen Miami’s visual arts community by creating more low-cost studio and exhibition space for working artists
• The Betsy Hotel: To brand South Florida as a muse for authors by expanding a new writer-in-residence program on Miami Beach to include community outreach events
• The Black Archives, History and Research Foundation of South Florida: To cultivate spoken poetry by providing studio space at the historic Lyric Theater and an annual festival for artists who create pieces that highlight life in Overtown
• Patricia Hernandez: To experiment with engaging audiences through presenting cutting-edge, thematic, multidisciplinary projects inspired by local ideas, people and issues
• Miami Children’s Initiative: To share local history through the arts by creating the Liberty City Renaissance, a year-round series featuring local African-American artists and culture
• Miami Classical Guitar Society: To expose new audiences to classical guitar by launching an educational outreach program to community centers and schools, culminating in an international competition and festival
• The PlayGround Theatre: To help nurture small performing arts groups by providing them with a small, well-equipped black box theater at discounted rates
• The Project [theatre]: To strengthen Miami’s alternative theater scene by providing funding to develop a new theater company dedicated to innovating and redefining the theatrical experience
• The Rhythm Foundation: To introduce new audiences to Haitian music by expanding the successful, one-year-old Big Night in Little Haiti concert and art series
• Thought Loom: To position South Florida as a hub for dance by pairing South Florida-based choreographers with national and international dance artists for seasonal performances
• Urgent, Inc.: To engage and inspire young artists by having them create murals in Overtown’s historic Dorsey Park commemorate it as the home of South Florida’s Negro League baseball team
• Viernes Culturales/Cultural Fridays: To accelerate the transformation of Little Havana’s arts district by expanding the scope and programming of the popular monthly cultural festival, Viernes Culturales

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