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 First as
associate director of development for Florida Grand Opera, next
as deputy director and then interim director of the department
of cultural affairs at Miami Dade College, Wolfson Campus, and
now as artistic and executive director of Miami Light Project,
Beth Boone has made the most of what Miami has to offer. She’s
also helped to make Miami the most — in music, dance, theater,
performance and every cross-pollination of each you can imagine.
Just check Miami Light
Project’s performance history since Boone’s been running things.
Sure, she brought to town the likes of Laurie Anderson, Nina
Simone and Sonny Rollins, but she also staged such lesser-known
greats as Japan’s Rinko Gun Theatre Company and Haiti’s Beethova
Obas. Hell, with New York minimal-maximalist Philip Glass and
Gambian griot Foday Musa Suso (down to sound Genet’s
The Screens), Boone even twined the two.
Then, of course, there’s the
urban (Miami Project Hip-Hop just completed its fifth kick-ass
run), the urbane (the 10th Here Now bows in March) and the
workshops, classes and commissions that enable local, national
and international artists to become both.
No, Boone doesn’t do it all
by her lonesome: Foundations as esteemed as Ford, the Greene
Family, Jason Taylor and the Adams all kick in with backing, as
does just about every council in the county; and venues as
disparate and inviting as the Carnival Center, the Colony and
Books & Books give MLP both curatorial collaboration and stage.
And, come January and February, the Project will team with
FundARTE to present the Global Cuba Festival in Spiegeltent’s
much-anticipated Collins Park unveiling.
Add it up, and
if Boone’s lead isn’t lighting your way, well, you’ve got some
dim sun.
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