Founder and Executive Director Mary Luft Will Retire
Tigertail Productions, Inc.,
announced that it will dissolve as of December 31, 2017. Executive
Director Mary Luft, who founded the not-for-profit cultural organization in
1979 and led it throughout its 38 years, announced her retirement to
Tigertail's Board of Directors. After a thorough discussion, the Board
determined that the organization will dissolve as of the end of the year. No
further events are planned.
Tigertail was incorporated
in November, 1979, as Mary Luft and Company, Inc. Soon, Luft began
to present performance and music events, often from the studio behind her
Tigertail Ave. home in Coconut Grove. In 1984, the Board renamed the
organization to Tigertail Productions.
Highlights include the
1988 New Music America (NMA), which brought to Miami over 100
local, regional, national and world artists for a 10-day series of events. For
12 years, NMA was held in a different city each year and grew into one of the
largest new music festivals ever held in North America by the time it came to
Miami.
In addition to its lengthy
presenting history, Tigertail has proven to be a breeding ground for Miami
artists. Tigertail's programs combined an energetic mix of area, national and
international artists of all disciplines. Over the years, Tigertail presented
over 670 artists – in dance, music, film/video, theater,
performance, poetry/spoken word and the visual arts. In addition to its
annual concert season, Tigertail commissioned and provided travel opportunities
within the US and abroad for hundreds of local artists to develop and
facilitate their careers. In addition, a number of persons who once worked for
Tigertail have themselves gone on to become cultural leaders. Miami Light
Project co-founder Janine Gross worked for Tigertail for NMA, as did former
Miami Herald critic Jordan Levin. Georgiana Pickett’s
involvement with Tigertail helped lead to her current position as Executive
Director of New York City's Baryshnikov Arts Center. O Cinema co-founder Vivian
Marthell worked for Tigertail, as have many other local arts activists.
Luft’s experience researching
music in Brazil for
NMA, coupled with her 1989 Fulbright Fellowship there, led to 20 years of
cultural exchange projects with the country. In 1995, Tigertail began FLA/BRA,
an annual festival that brought cutting-edge Brazilian artists to Miami until
the incidents of 9/11/2001 made it difficult to impossible. Local performing
and visual artists were also sent to Brazil to perform, exhibit and work with
Brazilian artists. Other international festivals included a 2-year project
with France, FLA/FRA(2014 & 2015), and two
"element"-based festivals – WATER and FIRE (2016
& 2017).
In 2000, Tigertail
launched danceAble. Co-presented with the Florida Dance
Association, this unique program focused on dance as a vital art form and a
fundamental means of physical expression for persons with and without
disabilities. danceAble confronted traditional dance
ideologies and challenged the notion of who can create and perform. Presented
each year until 2013, the project presented leading artists and companies from
around the world. Additionally, Tigertail structured exchange residencies for
Miami artists in other countries. Tigertail continued to present physically
integrated dance events through its final 2016-17 season.
Tigertail entered the
literary arena in 2003 with the publication of an annual poetry collection, Tigertail,
A South Florida Poetry Annual. Each of the 10 editions featured a
different editor and a cover by a well-known South Florida visual artist. The
first edition was edited by MacArthur Foundation "Genius"
awardee Campbell McGrath, the cover by Carlos Betancourt.
Volume IV of the annual was edited by President Obama's inaugural poet Richard
Blanco. The anthology was published annually until 2013. From the 1990s
through the present day, Tigertail produced youth spoken word
projects WordSpeak and SpeakOut.
Established poets taught and mentored students in the spoken word form. Over
the years, Tigertail sent dozens of teens to Brave New Voices – a national
festival considered the "olympics" of teen spoken word. Tigertail is
currently in discussion with a potential successor to these programs, with the
hope that teens will continue to have these opportunities in the future.
In 2014, Tigertail launched a
new project, ScreenDance Miami, featuring dance created not
for the stage but for the camera. ScreenDance Miami included
panel discussions, workshops, site-specific installations and screenings of
dance films by local, national and international dance and film artists. The
annual festival continued through this year. For ScreenDance Miami,
also, Tigertail is actively discussing the continuation of the program by
another organization so that South Florida can remain one of the leading cities
that supports screen dance.
Tigertail Productions’
website, tigertail.org,
which archives each of Tigertail's seasons from 1997 to date will be maintained
several years into the future to continue its legacy as Florida's pioneer of
innovative art.
Tigertail Productions
842 NW Ninth Court
Miami, Florida 33136
(305)324-4337
www.tigertail.org
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